The Final Act at Fifty: Scientific Cooperation and Human Rights from Helsinki to Ukraine

• In Event: Soviet Science, Human Rights, and International Governance

Abstract

This paper analyzes U.S. and Soviet interpretations of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act that elevated international scientific cooperation into a mechanism of human rights. After the Final Act’s signing, American scientists threatened to withdraw from scientific cooperation unless the Soviet Union improved its record on human rights, while most Soviet scientists argued that withdrawing from the enterprise would violate the Final Act and ruin détente. After the Cold War’s end, the scientific community has continued to use international cooperation as a method of protecting human rights.

Author

• Paul Rubinson, Bridgewater State U