50 Years Since Helsinki: Continued Commitment to Peace and Human Rights
This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, a landmark document that reframed European diplomacy and laid the foundation for some of the most powerful human rights movements of the late 20th century. The Act, signed in 1975 after two years of negotiations, was the product of hard-nosed diplomacy between deeply divided blocs. It offered no binding guarantees. And yet, through its principles, especially those affirming respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, it opened space for dissent, dialogue, and ultimately, transformation.
Credit Bundesarchiv/Horst Sturm. L-r: Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Erich Honecker, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Gerald Ford President of the United States, Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of Austria, Helsinki, 1 August 1975.
The legacy of Helsinki is deeply woven into the identity of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee (NHC). We exist because civil society actors, supported by international principles and patient diplomacy, saw the potential of law, rights, and dialogue to challenge authoritarianism and promote justice. For civil society, these principles became tools. In the decades that followed, activists across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union invoked ‘Helsinki’ to demand what had been promised: freedom of expression, association, movement, and legal accountability. The Dutch government’s early skepticism of the process eventually gave way to active engagement and support for civil society, and the NHC was founded in the wake of these shifting currents, as a bridge between values and practice, and between governments and the people they serve.
Today, that legacy is under immense pressure. Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine has laid bare the collapse of shared norms that once bound this region together. The death toll, destruction, and widespread war crimes committed since 2014 and intensified since 2022, are a tragedy for Ukraine and for Europe, as well as profound violation of the principles that Helsinki enshrined: sovereignty, territorial integrity, peaceful dispute resolution, and human rights.
And Ukraine is not alone. From the Donbas to Minsk, from Tbilisi to occupied Crimea, the standards that once made dialogue possible are rapidly eroding. At the Helsinki+50 Conference, the NHC is proud to contribute through side events supporting Belarusian human rights defenders and marking 11 years of occupation in Crimea. In the same hall where the Final Act was signed, we will hear testimony from voices confronting repression daily, including Viasna, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. A separate session, moderated by the NHC and organised by leading Ukrainian human rights groups, will spotlight the situation in Crimea, exposing Russia’s continued aggression and offering concrete OSCE-focused recommendations to counter authoritarianism and promote justice. These events are part of a broader effort to renew the Helsinki vision today. Parts of the conference (not the side-events) can be followed online on 31 July: link.
Credit: OSCE
The responsibility to uphold the Helsinki Principles does not end at the borders of conflict zones or authoritarian regimes. In the Netherlands too, we are seeing signs of erosion: proposals that undermine civil liberties and the presumption of innocence, pressure on the independence of the judiciary, and diminishing space for critical civil society voices. Civic space is not static, and democratic values require constant renewal. If we expect others to respect human rights and the rule of law, we must hold ourselves to the same standard, and continue to defend the principles of non-intervention, legal integrity, and fundamental freedoms at home just as we do abroad.
Helsinki was never about consensus. It was born of rivalry, mistrust, and strategic calculation. Negotiators from opposing blocs, four years after tanks rolled into Prague, managed to find common ground, however fragile, that civil society later turned into leverage. The principle of accountability, born on paper, came to life through transnational networks, and in no small part helped unravel the very regimes that signed on in the belief it was harmless. Helsinki taught us that even in moments of deep division, dialogue is possible, and that diplomacy, when anchored in principle and sustained with patience, can lay the groundwork for profound change.
At the NHC, we continue this work not in nostalgia, but in commitment. To the defenders on the frontlines, to justice in Ukraine and Belarus, and to the idea that peace in Europe is only possible when human rights and the rule of law are protected everywhere — including here at home.
Joeri Buhrer Tavanier
Executive Director, Netherlands Helsinki Committee
