The Promises We Keep: Human Rights, the Helsinki Process and American Foreign Policy - Softcover

William Korey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031212189X ISBN 13: 9780312121891

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 1994

Synopsis

When the Helsinki Final Act was signed in 1975, no one anticipated the extraordinary impact it would have in undermining Communist rule in Eastern Europe and bringing down the Berlin Wall. Professor Korey's pioneering study explores both the developments in the Helsinki Process that led to this historic transformation and the leadership role of the United States, which proved central to its success. But this leadership was initially lacking, and The Promises We Keep discusses both the enactment and impact of this remarkable policy turnaround.
The Helsinki Process is by no means at an end. Professor Korey also examines the xenophobic nationalisms tearing at the fabric of European society and posing new and frightening human rights challenges.

About this title

About the Author

William Korey taught at Long Island University, City College of New York, and Columbia University and has been visiting professor at Yeshiva University and Brooklyn College.

From Publishers Weekly

Korey, director of international policy research for B'nai B'rith from 1976 to 1990, has written a book for experts, an extensively researched, blow-by-blow account of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), launched in Helsinki in 1975. While the Soviet Union, the CSCE's main sponsor, had thought it would legitimate Soviet power in Eastern Europe, in fact its tenets ultimately led to pressure on the Soviets about their human rights record and arguably helped foster the fall of communism. Korey has examined documents and interviewed diplomats to reconstruct CSCE debates, meetings and decisions. He describes Henry Kissinger's skepticism abut the principles of the Helsinki Final Act; the growth of Andrei Sakharov's monitoring organization, the Helsinki Watch Group, in the Soviet Union; the signatories' agreements to increased rights to religious practice and emigration in 1989 Vienna negotiations; and the contribution of U.S. negotiator Max Kampelman. Though Korey sees the CSCE as a success, he notes that neither it nor any other international organization has been able to curb violence in the former Yugoslavia and other European ethnic flashpoints.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 031212189X
• ISBN 13: 9780312121891
• Binding: Paperback