Publisher's Synopsis
This work focuses on the pioneering work of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in the field of European Security and Co-operation, notably the Union's meetings of parliamentarians in CSCE which preceded the different stages of intergovernmental CSCE process.;THe author traces the history of Inter-Parliamentary involvement in East-West detente, starting with the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on European Cooperation and Security, in Helsinki in 1973, which was the first all-European conference of the post-World War II era and came two years before the intergovernmental conference in the same city that resulted in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act. The book describes the six other Inter-Parliamentary Conferences on the subjects that were held until 1991 when the IPU stepped back from its active involvement in CSCE following the end of the Cold War, the signing of the Treaty of Paris for a new Europe and the establishment of the CSCE's own Parliamentary Assembly.;The book provides a systematic comparision between the progress made on the various issues at the inter-parliamentary and intergivernmental levels, and includes the final documents adopted by each of the seven conferences.
