THE HELSINKI PROCESS, THE CONFERENCE ON SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE (CSCE), THE INTERNATIONAL HELSINKI FEDERATION, THE HELSINKI MOVEMENT

THE HELSINKI PROCESS, THE CONFERENCE ON SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE (CSCE), THE INTERNATIONAL HELSINKI FEDERATION, THE HELSINKI MOVEMENT.  The threat of a Third World War, which would have meant the suicide of humanity, compelled 33 European countries (all except Albania), as well as the USA and Canada, to sign the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, on August 1, 1975. It affirmed the sovereign equality of states, the inviolability of the borders established as a result of the Second World War, the peaceful settlement of disputes, the granting of most-favored-nation status in trade, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948. Since the CSCE Final Act was equated with national legislation, its signing meant that legal opportunities were opened to fight human rights violations legally and legitimately, relying on both domestic and international law: the exposure of facts concerning the persecution of people for their beliefs henceforth prompted legally justified claims from other parties and could no longer be treated as interference in a country’s internal affairs. Human rights activists took advantage of this and created public groups to monitor states’ compliance with human rights agreements (the so-called “third basket”). On the initiative of Professor Yuri ORLOV, on May 12, 1976, they created the Moscow Public Group for Promoting Compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Although Ukraine was not represented at the Conference, on the initiative of General Petro HRYHORENKO and the writer and philosopher Mykola RUDENKO, the Ukrainian Public Group for Promoting Compliance with the Helsinki Accords was created on November 9, 1976.

The Helsinki movement quickly became international: on November 25, 1976, the Lithuanian Helsinki Group was formed, followed by the Georgian Helsinki Group on January 14, 1977, and the Armenian Helsinki Group on April 1, 1977. Since September 1976, the Workers’ Defence Committee had been active in Poland, later transformed into the Committee for Social Self-Defense, and in January 1977, the group “Charter 77” was formed in Czechoslovakia. In the USA, a special commission of Congress was created.

Human rights defenders brought about a revolutionary shift in the consciousness of a population terrorized over the preceding decades: in unfree countries, they began to behave as free people. They began to demand that the state recognize human rights, i.e., their legalization, and began to exercise their constitutional rights de facto (freedom of speech, of the press, of demonstration, of association, etc.), that is, to understand the laws as they were written. Such behavior provoked repression from totalitarian states and, in response, sharp criticism from democratic states, which, to a large extent, ultimately led to the collapse of communist ideology, the destruction of the “socialist camp,” and the proclamation of independence by a number of states, including Ukraine, where opportunities to build societies based on the rule of law opened up.

Since 1977, CSCE meetings have been held periodically. In 1994, the name was changed to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Independent Ukraine officially became a member of the CSCE on January 30, 1992.

Concurrently, since 1982, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights has been active as a non-governmental international organization. It initiates and coordinates the activities of national Helsinki organizations that monitor their governments’ observance of human rights. Its headquarters is in Vienna. From November 1998 to November 204, its president was Lyudmila ALEXEYEVA; it is currently headed by Ulrich Fischer (Austria).

The traditions of the public human rights movement in Ukraine were continued by the Ukrainian Helsinki Union (July 7, 1988 – April 29, 1990), the Ukrainian Committee “Helsinki-90” (created June 16, 1990), and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union (created April 1, 2004), which brought together a number of human rights organizations.