Review article

Helsinki Movement and its Reach: From the Cold War to Contemporary Croatia

Tin Gazivoda ; Centre for Human Rights, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Starting with the initial Soviet enthusiasm with the idea of an all-European security organization, years of negotiations at the inter-state level eventually lead to a document which allowed citizens of the signatory states to monitor how their governments implement the obligations they accepted. By signing the Helsinki Final Act the Eastern-bloc states also for the first time "accepted" the notion that human rights are not exclusively an internal affair of each state. The Helsinki Act officially established the first international organization that brought together representatives of leading states of the "capitalist west" and the "communist east". At the same time, the Helsinki Act encouraged numerous disidents and human rights activists in closed societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, leading to the establishment of citizen-based Helsinki monitor organizations with the main task of monitoring the degree to which their governments' implement commitments in the field of human rights. A few years later, in the fall of 1982, a mechanism for the coordination of the efforts of established Helsinki committees at the international level was formed - the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.
Throughout the period of the nineteen seventies and eighties the activities of Helsinki Committees in Eastern Europe, and to some degree in the Soviet Union as well, started to develop as did the activities of other cultural, ecological and pacifist groups and individual dissidents. By expanding the space of freedom and advocating the protection of basic human rights, these civic initiatives substantially contributed to the dismantlement of one-party communist/socialist regimes. In this context, the Final Helsinki Act served as a powerful leverage for the efforts of human rights activists. The dissolution of the Eastern bloc, simultaneously lead to the intensification of inter-ethnic conflicts throughout the region. While the Yugoslav Helsinki Committee dissolved together with the former Yugoslavia, the existing government (CSCE - OSCE) and non-government Helsinki based mechanisms were not capable of preventing the most severe human rights violations from taking place throughout the former Yugoslavia. Recognizing the need to protect and advocate for the rights of all citizens of Croatia regardless of their belonging, on March 31, 1993 the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights (CHC) was established. Despite numerous difficulties, in the last fifteen years the Croatian Helsinki Committee became the key place for human rights protection in contemporary Croatia. Therefore, the main aim of this article is to highlight the important role as well as the limitations of the Helsinki movement as a whole as well as the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the recent years.

Keywords

Helsinki Final Act: OSCE; Helsinki movement; human rights; International Helsinki Federation far Human Rights; Croatian Helsinki Committee

Hrčak ID:

291345

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/291345

Publication date:

1.2.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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