Following are excerpts from a statement by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), ranking member of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) as it appeared in the Congressional Record of May 26. Sen. Cardin has been a Helsinki commissioner since 1993, when he was still a member of the House of Representatives; he chaired the commission in 2007-2015.
… on June 3, 1976, U.S. President Gerald Ford signed into law a bill establishing the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, more commonly known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission. …the commission has played a particularly significant role in U.S. foreign policy.
First, the commission provided the U.S. Congress with a direct role in the policymaking process. Members and staff of the commission have been integrated into official U.S. delegations to meetings and conferences of what is historically known as the Helsinki process. …As elected officials, our ideas reflecting the interests of concerned American citizens are better represented in U.S. diplomacy as a result of the commission. There is no other country that has a comparable body, reflecting the singular role of our legislature as a separate branch of government in the conduct of foreign policy. The commission’s long-term commitment to this effort has resulted in a valuable institutional memory and expertise in European policy possessed by few others in the U.S. foreign affairs community.
Second, the commission was part of a larger effort since the late 1970s to enhance consideration of human rights as an element in U.S. foreign policy decision-making. Reps. Millicent Fenwick of New Jersey and Dante Fascell of Florida created the commission as a vehicle to ensure that human rights violations raised by dissident groups in the Soviet Union and the Communist countries of Eastern Europe were no longer ignored in U.S. policy. In keeping with the Helsinki Final Act’s comprehensive definition of security – which includes respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as a principle guiding relations between states – we have reviewed the records of all participating countries, including our own and those of our friends and allies.
From its Cold War origins, the Helsinki Commission adapted well to changing circumstances, new challenges, and new opportunities. It has done much to ensure U.S. support for democratic development in East-Central Europe and continues to push for greater respect for human rights in Russia and the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The commission has participated in the debates of the 1990s on how the United States should respond to conflicts in the Balkans, particularly Bosnia and Kosovo and elsewhere, and it does the same today in regard to Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine. It has pushed U.S. policy to take action to combat trafficking in persons, anti-Semitism and racism, and intolerance and corruption, as well as other problems which are not confined to one country’s borders. …
I think it is important to mention that the hard work we do on the Helsinki Commission is not a job requirement for a member of Congress. Rather than being a responsibility, it is something many of us choose to do because it is rewarding to secure the release of a longtime political prisoner, to reunify a family, to observe elections in a country eager to learn the meaning of democracy for the first time, to enable individuals to worship in accordance with their faiths, to know that policies we advocated have meant increased freedom for millions of individuals in numerous countries, and to present the United States as a force for positive change in this world.
…as much as the commission has accomplished in its four decades, there continues to be work to be done in its fifth, and the challenges ahead are no less than those of the past.