Review of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe: 40 years after Helsinki

In: Međunarodni problemi: International problems, Band 67, Heft 4, S. 365-390

Abstract

The paper deals with the genesis of the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) as the important pan-European forum for
addressing security issues during the Cold War era, and, secondly, analyses
the dynamics of institutional changes that led to establishment of the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). As an active
factor in the process of d?tente and the easing of tensions between the then
USSR and the United States, the CSCE was the place in which were flowing all
initiatives related to overcoming the security problems in bipolar Europe.
The paper provides a brief of negotiation process that produced the Helsinki
Final Act of 1975, an international political document that laid down the
basic principles of interstate relations and political commitments in a
number of areas, from military-political security, to economic and
environmental co-operation and human rights. The author concludes that the
role of the OSCE is likely to stagnate in the 21st century, for it will not
be sufficiently capable to influence Euro-Atlantic and Euroasian affairs, and
to maintain its function as an important consultative and negotiating
mechanism, as well as a platform for regional security and cooperation.