Would You Believe . . . the Helsinki Accords Changed the World? Advancing Global Human Rights and, for Decades, Security in Europe by Peter L. W. Osnos with Holly Cartner

Abstract

Has Russia's invasion of sovereign Ukraine, with its attendant atrocities, relegated the 1975 Helsinki agreement and its advocacy of human rights to the dustbin of history? Two very different books, both by former Moscow correspondents of major Western newspapers, disagree. Peter Osnos, a former correspondent for The Washington Post, wants us “to believe [that] the Helsinki accords changed the world” by advancing both human rights and security. Richard Davy, who was a correspondent for The Times of London, is not so certain.The first book is primarily a memoir highlighting the contributions by the author, his wife, and his father-in-law, U.S. ambassador Albert W. Sherer, to the shaping of the Helsinki process and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in its early stages. It includes little on CSCE that is not already known but sheds light on the trajectory of the Helsinki Watch group, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in which Osnos has been deeply involved and which was instrumental in helping to transform dissent within the Soviet bloc into a political force, thus helping to undermine the Soviet system and facilitating the Cold War's peaceful resolution. The book includes two chapters by Helsinki Watch's former director, Holly Cartner, reminiscing about the NGO's transformation after its “Helsinki connection became less important . . . and the ambitions of the organization became increasingly global” (p. 128), with activists pursuing more self-centered agendas.Rebranded as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and serving as a watchdog of human rights anywhere, the group raised eyebrows when it “aligned itself with the position of far-right politicians” (p. 129) and again when it accepted Saudi money and “crossed . . . the threshold” by naming Israel “an apartheid state” (p. 132). After HRW chose “neutrality” by “not picking sides in [the Russia-Ukraine] war or ascribing blame for starting it” (p. 136), Osnos came to wonder whether “it is possible to denounce violence of all kinds when one side is defending itself and the other is intent on maximum destruction” (p. 135). Yet, he still regards HRW as “far and away the most important global human rights and social justice organization in history,” confident that its “scale . . . and the endowment (rare among NGOs) and a record of sustained achievement, assures that it will remain a pillar of human rights” (pp. 65, 140).Davy's study is refreshingly free of such ruminations. Although the book does not add much to what is already known about the Helsinki process, it provides a reliable overview and adds to a better understanding of it as a unique experiment in multilateral diplomacy. Based on solid command of the voluminous secondary literature and salient primary sources, Davy poses the right questions, without necessarily offering final answers, leaving it up to readers to form their own judgments. In explaining the road to Helsinki, he attributes key importance to the rise of détente, defined as the period in the 1960s and 1970s when the Cold War adversaries concluded that reducing tension was in their interests, even though a descent to a “Second Cold War” in the early 1980s occurred before the standoff reached an unexpected dénouement. Davy credits the Helsinki process with “defrosting” the Cold War, but he does not address the larger question of whether détente accelerated or delayed the happy end of the confrontation.Defrosting the Cold War and Beyond does not attempt to draw a direct line between the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and the unraveling of the Soviet bloc. Davy argues that the Helsinki process “contributed to the end of communism in Eastern Europe” but “did not cause the collapse” (pp. 234–235). He contends that the outcome was produced not by the workings of diplomacy, multilateral or otherwise, but by timely action from below by the peoples of the region and from above, crucially, by the lack of action by their rulers amid the incipient implosion of the power structure of the Soviet state.When the Cold War ended, Davy observes, “the states of the CSCE might have declared their work done” and closed shop. Instead, “the Helsinki process entered an entirely new phase [and] continued to evolve” (p. 173). The conference not only reinvented itself as an institution, albeit one without legal personality—the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)—but also enlarged itself beyond recognition by including the Soviet Union's Central Asian successor states of questionable European identity. By 2015, as the largest regional security organization in the world, with nearly 60 member-states supposed to make decisions by consensus, it had been largely paralyzed by Russia's obstruction. Davy nevertheless remains optimistic about the OSCE's potential, citing particularly its record of monitoring elections in countries susceptible to manipulating them.Even before Russia's aggression against Ukraine, however, the CSCE/OSCE had been sidelined by other international bodies—not only by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, but also by the Council of Europe, the United Nations, and the G-20 group of the world's largest economies. In addressing the tired question of whether there “was an opportunity missed to set up a new pan-European security system that would have included Russia, enabling it to feel less isolated and threatened” (p. 189), Davy examines a wide range of the arguments, whether misinformed or disingenuous, before reaching the conclusion that “in the end [Russian President Vladimir Putin was the one who] made choices” (p. 202). Putin's fateful choice to launch an all-out war against Russia's Slavic neighbor—shortly after the book went to the printer—made the issue of Russia's membership in Europe's security system problematic for the indefinite future.On the question of whether the Helsinki model can be applied elsewhere in the world, Davy's “short answer is no, [for] Helsinki was specific to its time and place in Cold War Europe” (p. 239). Its legacy thus boils down to what lessons may be learned from it or, given the Cold War's anomalous nature, what wrong lessons should be avoided. He considers a dozen possible lessons, from the CSCE's procedural innovations to the application of its soft power and pursuit of the linkage between security and human rights. “Before selecting from the toolbox,” however, “we must see it whole in a historical context” (p. 247). Thus, for example, trying to apply in the Ukraine war the Helsinki-style “basket” approach that worked in negotiating the 1998 Irish Good Friday agreement—as if the parties in those conflicts were in any way comparable—would be a non-starter.At the time of this writing, with Russia's war against Ukraine still raging and its outcome uncertain, the relevance of the Helsinki process to Europe's security predicament is also uncertain. Military, rather than soft or any other power, reigns supreme as long as a real war is in progress, and diplomacy should stay on hold at a time when compromise is out of the question. Yet, all wars eventually end, and, provided that Russia has been defeated, the security environment that could emerge after the war might conceivably resuscitate the OSCE, perhaps even by applying the Helsinki principles to bring together Europe and its Central Asian “near abroad.” If that proves to be the case, Davy's book could serve as an indispensable primer not only for students but also for policymakers.