Human Rights, the Helsinki Process, and the Soviet Bloc, 1971-1989
Human Rights, the Helsinki Process, and the Soviet Bloc, 1971-1989

Summary/Abstract: The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was originally proposed by the Soviet Union in the late 1960s in order to gain international recognition and codification of the postwar boundaries in Europe. Western governments were eventually willing to go along with it in return for Moscow’s agreement to initiate talks on limiting conventional forces in Europe – talks that ultimately led nowhere. The CSCE accords were negotiated among 35 countries (from Europe and North America) in Helsinki and Vienna from 1973 to 1975. West European and U. S. officials sought to ensure that the Helsinki accords would include far-reaching provisions on human rights and human contacts. Although Soviet-bloc governments opposed these provisions, they agreed to accept them to ensure that CSCE would be successful. The provisions on human rights did not go beyond what was already in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), but they did establish a human rights framework specifically for East-West relations.

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