Identity Statement

Reference Code

HU OSA 206-2-6

Title

The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Movement

Date(s)

1998

Description Level

Series

Context

Name of creator(s)

Open Society Archives at Central European University

Archival history

The first part of the archive of IHF was tranfered to OSA at CEU in Budapest in 1998. At this occasion, to highlight the importance and commemorate the role the Organization has played in bringing down the communist regimes in East Central Europe, the Open Society Archives has curated an exhibition in Galeria Centralis.

Content and Structure

Scope and Content (Abstract)

An exhibition about the 23 years of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights Movement.

Scope and Content (Narrative)

IHF was brought to life at the height of worsening US-Soviet relations, by representatives of eighteen Western European and North American countries at a conference in Bellaggio, Italy in September 1982. Its foundation was communicated at a press conference on November 9, 1982 during the CSCE meeting in Madrid. The underlying idea was to pull together, orchestrate and intensify the activities of already existing Helsinki monitors and other interest groups in monitoring human rights in the thirty-three signatory states, but first and foremost in the Soviet Union and its Communist allies who, despite having signed the Helsinki Final Act, did little to fulfil its prescriptions.

Backed also by US-based human rights NGOs, most prominently Helsinki Watch, the principal initiator of the foundation of IHF, this European watchdog organization exercised its role by organizing frequent consultations toward building a common strategy among its member committees on the one hand, and on the other, by submitting frequent inquiries and open letters to governments, releasing press statements and conducting fact-finding missions in the countries under their investigation. By embedding itself in CSCE negotiations and winning over the support of neutral and non-aligned delegations, IHF had a greater chance of effectively improving or at least influencing the human rights situation in those countries.

Using archival documents, such as IHF project and mission files, thematic reference files and photographs, IHF publications and reports the exhibition at OSA was to testify about the Vienna-based non-governmental organizations’ work and its efforts to improve human rights conditions in signatory countries of the Helsinki Final Act.

Accruals

Not Expected

Conditions of Access and Use

Conditions governing access

Not restricted

Languages

English, German, Hungarian, Russian