Advocating religious freedom in the Helsinki process. New research perspectives on the non-state actors in view of the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act (1975–2025)

The Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) born of the Helsinki Agreements (1973-75) is often described as one of the main diplomatic achievements of the détente era, and a crucial milestone towards ending the Cold War. Yet not only diplomats played a part in the process. Non-state actors and NGOs also did their share by lobbying CSCE staff and conference attendees for human rights and Religious freedom violations behind the Iron Curtain. Drawing on the most recent research on this topic (Badalassi and Snyder, The CSCE and the End of the Cold War: Diplomacy, Societies and Human Rights, 2019), this online workshop aims at further exploring human rights activists involved in the Helsinki process, at the interface between the Dissent and the Western public, and between state and other private networks. The focus of this workshop is on the religion, on religious networks and actors who advocate religious freedom and human rights in the CSCE process, particularly in the neutral States of Switzerland, Finland, and Austria.