Helsinki Accords

Helsinki Accords
For the set of principles on human experimentation, see Declaration of Helsinki.
Erich Honecker (GDR, left) and Helmut Schmidt (FRG) in Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki 1975.

The Helsinki Final Act, Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the final act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki, Finland, during July and August 1,1975. Thirty-five states, including the USA, Canada, and all European states except Albania and Andorra, signed the declaration in an attempt to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West.

Contents

Articles

The Act's "Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States" (also known as "The Decalogue") enumerated the following 10 points:

  1. Sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty
  2. Refraining from the threat or use of force
  3. Inviolability of frontiers
  4. Territorial integrity of States
  5. Peaceful settlement of disputes
  6. Non-intervention in internal affairs
  7. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief
  8. Equal rights and self-determination of peoples
  9. Co-operation among States
  10. Fulfilment in good faith of obligations under international law

Reception and impact

The document was seen both as a significant step toward reducing Cold War tensions and as a major diplomatic boost for the Soviet Union at the time, due to its clauses on the inviolability of national borders and respect for territorial integrity, which were seen to consolidate the USSR's territorial gains in Eastern Europe following the Second World War. Considering objections from Canada, Spain, Ireland and other states, the Final Act simply stated that "frontiers" in Europe should be stable, but those borders could be changed by peaceful means.[1]:65 U.S. President Gerald Ford also reaffirmed that US non-recognition policy of the Baltic states' (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) forced incorporation into the Soviet Union had not changed.[2] Leaders of other NATO member states made similar statements.[1]:65

However, the civil rights portion of the agreement provided the basis for the work of the Moscow Helsinki Group, an independent non-governmental organization created to monitor compliance to the Helsinki Accords (which evolved into several regional committees, eventually forming the International Helsinki Federation and Human Rights Watch). While these provisions applied to all signatories, the focus of attention was on their application to the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Soviet propaganda presented the Final Act as a great triumph for Soviet diplomacy and for Brezhnev personally.[1]:65

According to the Cold War scholar John Lewis Gaddis in his book "The Cold War: A New History" (2005), "Leonid Brezhnev had looked forward, Anatoly Dobrynin recalls, to the 'publicity he would gain... when the Soviet public learned of the final settlement of the postwar boundaries for which they had sacrificed so much'... '[Instead, the Helsinki Accords] gradually became a manifesto of the dissident and liberal movement'... What this meant was that the people who lived under these systems — at least the more courageous — could claim official permission to say what they thought."

Chancellor of Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) Helmut Schmidt, Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Erich Honecker, U.S. president Gerald Ford and Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky

The Helsinki Accords served as the groundwork for the later Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), established under the Paris Charter.

Signatory states

In French alphabetical order

Heads of states, heads of governments and leaders of ruling parties

  1. Helmut Schmidt Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
  2. Erich Honecker Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic
  3. Bruno Kreisky Chancellor of Austria
  4. Leo Tindemans Prime Minister of Belgium
  5. Todor Zhivkov Chairman of the State Council of Bulgaria
  6. Pierre Trudeau Prime Minister of Canada
  7. Makarios III President of the Republic of Cyprus
  8. Anker Jørgensen Prime Minister of Denmark
  9. Carlos Arias Navarro Prime Minister of Spain
  10. Urho Kekkonen President of Finland
  11. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing President of France
  12. Gerald Ford President of the United States of America
  13. Harold Wilson Prime Minister of United Kingdom
  14. Konstantinos Karamanlis Prime Minister of Greece
  15. János Kádár Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary
  16. Liam Cosgrave Prime Minister of Ireland
  17. Geir Hallgrímsson Prime Minister of Iceland
  18. Aldo Moro Prime Minister of Italy
  19. Walter Kieber Prime Minister of Liechtenstein
  20. Gaston Thorn Prime Minister of Luxembourg
  21. Dom Mintoff Prime Minister of Malta
  22. André Saint-Mleux Minister State of Monaco
  23. Trygve Bratteli Prime Minister of Norway
  24. Joop den Uyl Prime Minister of the Netherlands
  25. Edward Gierek First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party
  26. Francisco da Costa Gomes President of Portugal
  27. Nicolae Ceauşescu President of Romania
  28. Gian Luigi Berti Captain Regent of San Marino
  29. Agostino Casaroli Cardinal Secretary of Holy See
  30. Olof Palme Prime Minister of Sweden
  31. Pierre Graber President of the Swiss Confederation
  32. Gustáv Husák President of Czechoslovakia
  33. Süleyman Demirel Prime Minister of Turkey
  34. Leonid Brezhnev General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
  35. Josip Broz Tito President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Absent

  1. Joan Martí Alanis Co-Prince of Andorra and Bishop of Urgell
  2. Enver Hoxha First Secretary of the Albanian Party of Labour

References

  1. ^ a b c Hiden, John; Vahur Made, David J. Smith (2008). The Baltic question during the Cold War. Routledge. p. 209. ISBN 0415371007. 
  2. ^ McHugh, James T.; James S. Pacy (2001). Diplomats without a country: Baltic diplomacy, international law, and the Cold War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 84. ISBN 9780313318788. 

External links

v · d · eHistory of the Soviet Union (1964–1982) and the Era of Stagnation
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1964–1982: Collectivity of leadership · Glassboro Summit Conference · Prague Spring · Invasion of Czechoslovakia · Brezhnev Doctrine · Brezhnev assassination attempt · Sino–Soviet border conflict · Détente  · Helsinki Accords  · 1977 Soviet Constitution · Soviet war in Afghanistan · 1980 Summer Olympics · Soviet reaction to the Polish crisis · Exercise Zapad · Death and funeral of Leonid Brezhnev · Legacy of Leonid Brezhnev
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