Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War

Abstract

Two of the most pressing questions facing international historians today are how and why the Cold War ended. Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War explores how, in the aftermath of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, a transnational network of activists committed to human rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe made the topic a central element in East-West diplomacy. As a result, human rights eventually became an important element of Cold War diplomacy and a central component of détente. Sarah B. Snyder demonstrates how this network influenced both Western and Eastern governments to pursue policies that fostered the rise of organized dissent in Eastern Europe, freedom of movement for East Germans and improved human rights practices in the Soviet Union - all factors in the end of the Cold War.

Champion of Human Rights: The European Parliament and the Helsinki Process

“…Western European governments were concerned about a possible Soviet withdrawal from the CSCE. 65 Starting in the late 1970s, MEPs, by contrast, condemned particular abuses, such as the imprisonment of some Ukrainian women in the Soviet Union and the repression of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. 66 Significantly, the EC Council of Foreign Ministers countered in 1976 that it could do nothing for the Ukrainian women because the Final Act was not strictly speaking 'an agreement in international law.'…”

“…Communist MEPs applied the tactics used by the Soviet Union from the late 1970s onwards to counter criticisms of human rights abuses: that is, they denounced similar abuses by Western-backed regimes. 76 In 1980, Italian MEP Sergio Segre (Italian Communist Party) heavily criticized the myopic focus of 'the West' and the EP in particular. 77 'As if we did not know,' his fellow countryman and EP group member Mario Capanna (Democrazia proletaria) added, 'that, for example, the whole of Latin America from El Salvador to the South Pole was under the yoke of bloody dictatorships enjoying the active support of Washington, .…”

Framveksten av det moderne menneskerettighetsvernet

“…Helsinki-erklaeringen ledet til dannelsen av en lang rekke pressgrupper i og utenfor kommunistlandene. 33 Den amerikanske Helsinki Watch-gruppen fra 1978 ble senere til den meget innflytelsesrike organisasjonen Human Rights Watch. 34 Flere historikere har sett perioden fra midten av 1970-tallet som en periode med amerikanisering av menneskerettighetene der disse ble synonyme med sivile og politiske rettigheter.…”

The State and International Law: A Reading from the Global South

“…58 And so from the middle of the 1970s, and intensifying during the first half of the 1980s, the strong relationship between nation-building and the development project In tandem with these accusations, governments in the Global South began to be accused for their poor human rights records and 'democratic deficits'. 59 In this context, policies based on state contraction and market-based approaches gained pre-eminence, particularly within the programmes of structural adjustment imposed throughout the South by international institutions. These infamous reforms began with the IMF interventions throughout Latin America during the debt crisis of the 1980s.…”