Shifting Interpretations of the Non-intervention Principle in the OSCE
25 Oct 2017
By Christian Nünlist for European Leadership Network
This article was external pageoriginally published by the external pageEuropean Leadership Network (ELN) in October 2017.
Cold War, State Sovereignty, and Spheres of Influence
The principle of non-intervention is one of the “ten commandments” of the Helsinki Final Act (HFA) of 1975, the “gospel” and landmark document of the CSCE/OSCE. The non-intervention principle – principle VI in the HFA – is a child of the new world order after the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and a logical consequence of the principle of state sovereignty.1 Since then, the doctrine of non-intervention became an important governing rule of state relations to cope with anarchic international politics. The principle of non-intervention figures prominently in the UN Charter (1945)2 and several later key UN documents, including the 1949 Essentials of Peace Resolution or the 1970 “Friendly Relations” Declaration.3
The “Decalogue”, the catalogue of ten fundamental principles guiding the relations of the then 35 CSCE participating States contained six well-known and largely uncontroversial principles – including the principle of non-intervention – which were based on existing documents. When the CSCE started discussing these ten principles in 1973, the UN had just codified them in its “Friendly Relations” Declaration in 1970 after an eight-year multilateral marathon negotiation. Within the CSCE context, the West additionally introduced the principles of respect for human rights and the right of self-determination – which the Soviet Union had vehemently rejected in early 1973, but in the end, Moscow agreed to include them into the HFA. In return, the West accepted the principles of inviolability of borders and cooperation among states. With these four principles, the CSCE ventured into uncharted territory.4
Today, it is mostly forgotten that the CSCE is a “textbook case of history read backwards”.5 With the benefit of hindsight, the Helsinki process was dramatically reinterpreted after 1989. At the time, the HFA was actually widely regarded in the West as a one-sided victory of the Soviet Union, which had dreamed of a pan-European security treaty as a surrogate peace treaty to formally conclude World War II since 1954. With the HFA, the West seemed to have sanctioned the partition of Europe and the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, and to have recognized post-War European borders, including a divided Germany, thereby also accepting Soviet predominance in Central and Eastern Europe.6 It was only after 1989 that a revised historical perspective appeared. While the CSCE indeed had contributed to a territorial status quo in Europe, it also had dynamically championed change, emphasizing the role of human rights in a broader concept of security. In retrospect, the alleged Soviet victory in Helsinki now appeared to be a Pyrrhic victory.7
A close reading of the HFA makes clear that almost three years of complex multilateral East-West negotiations had led to a text whose final wording was vague, ambiguous, and contradictory. In essence, the wording allowed everyone to interpret the document differently, mirroring diplomatic compromises or, in the words of one leading OSCE expert, it was composed with “a craftsmanship of diplomatic terminology, where major differences had been carefully covered up by compromise language.”8 The Soviet Union emphasized static elements and the principles of non-intervention and inviolability of frontiers; whereas the West qualified existing border references with a “peaceful change” clause, and also undermined the non-intervention doctrine with principles calling for the universal respect for individual human rights and for the self-determination of peoples. For Moscow, Soviet and East European human rights practices were regarded as internal affairs. Since the HFA was only a political, legally non-binding document, the Soviet Union had no intention to take human rights seriously. In 1975, Soviet concessions in the area of human rights were made in part because Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev did not feel he was obligated to implement any components of the HFA he did not like.9
But as time passed after 1975, the Western “change” narrative prevailed over the Soviet “static” interpretation. The implementation of human rights commitments in the Soviet sphere of influence became a major agenda item of CSCE follow-up meetings in Belgrade (1977-1978), Madrid (1980-83), and Vienna (1986-1989). Western criticism of the Soviet human rights record triggered Moscow’s weak response that this was incompatible with the Helsinki principle of non-intervention in internal affairs.
Ironically, the Soviet position on non-intervention was always contradictory. While Moscow insisted vis-à-vis the West that the principle of non-intervention was sacred (to avoid Western interventions in the Soviet sphere of influence), at the same time it was always understood to be a Soviet privilege to interfere into its own sphere of influence, including with military force, e.g. in Hungary in 1956, in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and in Afghanistan in 1979. In these cases, Moscow gave preference to intervention over state sovereignty, and the Brezhnev Doctrine qualified the non-intervention norm. (In the bipolar world, it must be emphasized, the US also believed in such a right to intervene in its neighborhood and sphere of influence, as the military interventions in Guatemala, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic demonstrated).
The Short-lived Spirit of Cooperation, 1989-1994
In 1990, there was a brief window of opportunity when the interpretation of the Helsinki principles, including of non-intervention, was synchronized between Russia and the West. Already the third CSCE follow-up meeting in Vienna from November 1986 to January 1989 signaled an end to the traditional divide between Eastern and Western human rights philosophies. The CSCE Paris Charter for a New Europe, adopted in November 1990, shifted interpretations of the Helsinki principles – emphasizing individual rights while at the same time limiting state sovereignty. Mikhail Gorbachev’s speech at the CSCE summit in Paris in November 1990 made it clear that the Soviet Union, in a radical break with the past, now accepted the values of Western liberalism as universal. He fully embraced human rights, freedom, democracy, the rule of law and pluralism, and was confident that East-West trustful cooperation would lead to “a new and peaceful period in history”.10
The Charter of Paris breathes a positive ‘end of history’ spirit that might seem naïve today. But the cooperative spirit of 1990 did not simply consist of noble words. There was also substance to the promised new world order uniting the Soviet Union and the West. For instance, US-President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s joint denunciation of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait at a US-Soviet summit meeting in Helsinki in September 1990 and their joint chairmanship of the Middle East peace conference in Madrid in October 1991 were strong symbols of a new era of cooperation between East and West.11 In 1992, the UN Security Council gave a green light to a humanitarian intervention in Somalia – violating the principle of non-intervention to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Two years later, The P5 also supported, in a tripartite deal, interventions in Rwanda, Haiti and Russian peacekeeping in Abkhazia.12
Since the HFA had been written in vague language reflecting the disagreements between East and West, the principles have always been open to different interpretations. During the Cold War, principle VII on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms was counterbalanced by principle VI on non-intervention in internal affairs and the more traditional law principles such as respect for state sovereignty, non-aggression, and territorial integrity.
After 1989, however, Western and Soviet interpretations converged. As Arie Bloed has argued in an excellent essay, a new consensus on how the controversial non-intervention principle should be interpreted emerged in 1991.13 In the preamble of the Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE of October 1991, the CSCE participating States “categorically and irrevocably” declared that the human rights commitments undertaken within the CSCE were “matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating states and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concerned”.14 This substantial reinterpretation of the non-intervention principle not only applied to the human dimension, but also to the politico-military dimension. The 1994 Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Relations stated that full respect and the implementation of all CSCE principles were of “fundamental importance for stability and security, and consequently constitute a matter of direct and legitimate concern” to all participating States.15
Contradicting and Ambivalent Practice, 1994-2017
This consensus between Russia and the West on a much less strict interpretation and a reduced scope of the non-intervention principles, however, did not last. Already in the 1990s, differences over military interventions poisoned the cooperative spirit of 1990. Russian President Boris Yeltsin brandished NATO air strikes against a Bosnian-Serb military command outpost in April 1994 as “genocide” against the Serbs.16 At the OSCE summit in Budapest, Yeltsin famously warned of a “cold peace”, also complaining about US plans to expand NATO to former Warsaw Pact countries.17 The Russian again cried foul when NATO militarily intervened in the Kosovo War in 1999 – without a UN mandate. For Russia, NATO’s action was an act of military aggression and a violation of international law. The Kosovo War seemed to imply that NATO, just enlarged in March 1999 by Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic’s membership, could intervene in the future also on Russia’s periphery or even in Russia – and that the principles of territorial integrity and inviolability of borders could be disregarded without consequences.18 According to the dominant Russian narrative, the West also broke the non-intervention principle with its military intervention in Iraq (2003) and its “soft intervention” during the “color revolutions” in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kirgizstan (2005). Finally, Moscow complained that the West had transformed a UN-sanctioned humanitarian intervention in Libya (2011) into regime change.19 As a consequence, Russia and China refused to authorize a military intervention in Syria, despite massive human rights violations by government forces against civilians.
The West similarly complained about Russia’s interventions in Chechnya (1990s) and Georgia (2008). In 2008, Russia radically reversed its position: Having criticized the Western intervention in Kosovo, which was based on human rights arguments, Moscow now advanced the evolving “responsibility to protect” (R2P) concept to justify its invasion of Georgia and occupied and recognized the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, thereby violating the principle of territorial integrity. The West, in contrast, now suddenly emphasized sovereignty, non-intervention, and territorial integrity to reject Russia’s justification.20
In contrast to the consensus on the Helsinki principles and a convergence of support for the priority of liberal values and human rights over state sovereignty from 1990-1994, the last two decades saw more confusion and contested interpretations of the Helsinki principles, including that of non-intervention in internal affairs. While the West advanced the concept of responsibility to protect to prevent gross violations of human rights norms and legitimized humanitarian interventions even in the absence of UN Security Council authorization and was ready to qualify state sovereignty, Russia called these Western interventions without UN mandate illegal and a violation of international law.21 Moscow left the immediate post-Cold War consensus on universal liberal values and the retreat from absolute sovereignty – and moved back to the Westphalian concept of state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and a strict non-intervention norm.
Again, like during the Cold War, there was an ironic contradiction between Russia’s narrative that Western interventions were a violation of international law and the Helsinki principles on the one hand, and Russia’s self-conception that Russian (military) interventions were legitimate in its “near abroad”, as in Georgia and Ukraine.
In 2014, the Ukraine Crisis made it clear how radically different the preference for specific Helsinki principles were becoming. The West now championed territorial integrity, existing borders, and the territorial status quo in Europe – and thus also non-intervention. Russia, in contrast, had switched to advocating self-determination (e.g. Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Crimea) and change, in contrast to its traditional support for the principles of state sovereignty and territorial inviolability (e.g. in the Kosovo case, in support of Serbia).
The Way Forward: A “Paris II”?
These contested narratives and contradicting interpretations of fundamental norms and principles are not solely an academic concern. The clash between Russia and the West’s diametrically opposed narratives of the evolution of European Security after 1990 has also immediate implications for the present. These narratives continue to poison political discussions about a return to dialogue and diplomacy today. It is now clear that the expectation in 1990 that “Europe is liberating itself from the legacy of the past” (Paris Charter) was premature.22 History is back – and so is the controversy about the principle of non-intervention.
For the moment, relations between Russia and the West are reminiscent of the Cold War confrontation, even if it is wrong to make an analogy between contemporary and Cold War ties.23 Within the OSCE and elsewhere, Russia and the West are trying to return to diplomacy and a dialogue about contested interpretations of the Helsinki principles, based on current realities. For the moment, cooperation between Russia and the West will be limited to pragmatic, selective cooperation based on common interests rather than based on common values. The CSCE/OSCE vision of a norm-based common security community seems to be out of reach for the time being. The short-term priority must be to create measures that aim to lower the intensity of the confrontation and to strengthen communication between the sides to reestablish cooperation and rebuild mutual trust.24 The OSCE structured dialogue on threat perceptions and military doctrines launched in April 2017 is a good first step. Other helpful steps would be progress on the implementation of the Minsk Agreement, concluding agreements to avoid military incidents, and elaborating economic and environmental confidence-building measures. It has also been suggested that the the OSCE “Strategy to Address Threats to Security and Stability in the 21st Century” from 2003 could be updated. All of these undertakings would highlight similarities between Russia and the West as well as the need for multilateral cooperation in addressing current security challenges.25
With regard to conflicting interpretations of the Helsinki principles, including that of non-intervention, it has been suggested that a “Paris II” process could be launched.26 Similar to the actualization of the original Helsinki principles for the post-Cold War era in the Charter of Paris in 1990, the OSCE participating States could launch a multilateral dialogue about current controversies stemming from different interpretations of the Helsinki principles that have emerged since the mid-1990s. Such a “Paris II” would be much preferable to a “Helsinki II” (a renegotiation of the 1975 Helsinki principles) or even a “Yalta II” (a deal among major powers at the expense of smaller powers). Both a “Helsinki II” and a “Yalta II” should be regarded as non-starters for international diplomacy. While the 1975 Helsinki principles are universal principles, negotiated between East and West, that have passed the test of time, a “Yalta II” would in fact breach key Helsinki principles.
The inclusive OSCE is particularly well-suited for a dialogue among antagonistic camps in difficult, tense times, as the history of the Helsinki process during the Cold War has proved. If pragmatic confidence-building measures as well as an open dialogue on diverging threat perceptions, conflicting interests and core principles for peaceful coexistence were possible at the height of the Cold War, they should certainly be possible today.
Notes
1 See e.g. E. Vattel, Droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle (1758).
2 In the UN Charter, the principle of non-intervention is implied in the principle of sovereign equality of UN member states in Art. 2(1) and the prohibition of the threat or use of force in Art. 2(4).
3 UNGA/Res/290 (1949); UNGA/Res/2625 (1970).
4 Hans-Jörg Renk, Der Weg der Schweiz nach Helsinki (Bern: Haupt, 1996), pp. 79-81.
5 Andreas Wenger / Vojtech Mastny, ”New Perspectives on the Origins of the CSCE Process“, in: Andreas Wenger et al. (eds.), Origins of the European Security System (London: Routledge, 2008), pp. 3-22, at p. 3.
6 Yuliya von Saal, KSZE-Prozess und Perestroika in der Sowjetunion (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2014).
7 See e.g. Daniel Thomas, The Helsinki Effect (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
8 Arie Bloed, “OSCE Principles: Which Principles?”, in: Security and Human Rights 25 (2014), pp. 201-220, at p. 213.
9 Yuliaya von Saal, KSZE-Prozess und Perestroika in der Sowjetunion: Demokratisierung, Werteumbruch und Auflösung 1985-1991 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2014), pp. 37-43. See also Svetlana Savranskaya, “Unintended Consequences: Soviet Interests, Expectations and Reactions to the Helsinki Final Act”, in: Oliver Bange / Gottfried Niedhart (eds.), Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 175-190; Marie-Pierre Rey, “The USSR and the Helsinki Process, 1969-75: Optimism, Doubt, or Defiance?”, in: Wenger at al., Origins (see fn. 5), pp. 65-81.
10 Mikhail Gorbachev, Speech to the Second Summit of CSCE Heads of State or Government, Paris, 19-21 November 1990, www.osce.org/mc/16155.
11 Anatoly Chernayev, Die letzten Jahre einer Weltmacht (Stuttgart: DVA, 1993), pp. 306f.; Eduard A. Shevardnadze, The Future belongs to Freedom (New York: Free Press, 1991), p. 103.
12 Neil MacFarlane / Natalie Sabanadze, «Sovereignty and Self-Determination: Where Are We?», in: International Journal 68, no. 4 (2013), pp. 609-627, at p. 620.
13 Bloed, OSCE Principles, p. 215.
14 CSCE, Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, 3 October 1991.
15 CSCE, Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security, 3 December 1994, www.osce.org/fsc/41355. See Bloed, OSCE Principles, 216.
16 Hannes Adomeit, „Inside or Outside? Russia’s Policies towards NATO”, in: SWP Working Paper no. 1 (2007), pp. 6f.
17 James Goldgeier, “Promises Made, Promises Broken? What Yeltsin Was Told about NATO in 1993 and Why It Matters”, in: War on the Rocks, 12 July 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/07/promises-made-promises-broken-what-yeltsin-was-told-about-nato-in-1993-and-why-it-matters/.
18 Elena Kropatcheva, ”The Evolution of Russia’s OSCE Policy: From the Promises of the Helsinki Final Act to the Ukrainian Crisis“, in: Journal of Contemporary European Studies 23 23, no. 1 (2015), pp. 6-24, here at pp. 11f.
19 See Panel of Eminent Persons, Back to Diplomacy (Vienna: OSCE, 2015), pp. 24-26.
20 MacFarlane/Sabanadze, Sovereignty, p. 620f.
21 The Independent Commission on Kosovo, however, concluded in 1999 that NATO’s intervention had been «illegal but legitimate». Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report, 1999, p. 4. Most international law experts today agree that an UN mandate is necessary to avoid a “R2P cover” for geopolitically motivated military interventions.
22 See Christian Nünlist / Petri Hakkarainen, «Political Dynamics and Institutional Reforms in the OSCE», unpublished book chapter (May 2017).
23 Christian Nünlist, «Contested History: Rebuilding Trust in European Security», in: Strategic Trends (2017), pp. 11-34.
24 Wolfgang Zellner, European Security: Challenges at the Societal Level (Vienna: OSCE, 2016).
25 Christian Nünlist, «The OSCE and the Future of European Security», in: CSS-Analyses in Security Policy no. 202 (2017).
26 Zellner, European Security, pp. 15ff.; Nünlist, OSCE and the Future, p. 4; Nünlist, Contested History. p. 28.
About the Author
Christian Nünlist is a Senior Researcher at the Center of Security Studies (CSS) and head of its Swiss and Euro-Atlantic Security think tank team.
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