This report, which describes and evaluates the work of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, is in response to Chairman Fascell’s request.
The report’s conclusions:
We believe that the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe has helped, through its hearings and reports, to focus public attention and to inform public opinion and has made itself a principal Western source of information on Soviet and East European violations of the Final Act; helped resolve numerous family reunification cases for Eastern victims of Communist repression; played a key role in planning and conducting U.S. Helsinki diplomacy.; and effectively promoted a strong U.S. human rights policy in the East-West dialogue about cooperation, detente, and international security.
The Commission has put considerably less emphasis on implementing its second mandate–to monitor and encourage governmental and private programs aimed at expanding East-West economic and cultural cooperation. The Commission’s unusual organizational arrangement has worked well, although there were some initial difficulties, and as some observers have pointed out, more orthodox arrangements could also have worked well. Commission-participation in the international conferences has enhanced its ability to carry out its mandate to monitor and report on implementation of the Helsinki accords, and it has increased the ability of the Commission’s congressional members to influence U.S. policy in the Helsinki process. Yet it has invited criticism on constitutional grounds relating to the separation of powers because it has, in practice, given executive functions to staff personnel who report to members of Congress. No one we consulted has suggested that this arrangement should be changed with respect to the Helsinki Commission. Some, however, have cautioned against suggestions that such an arrangement might be applied to other areas of U.S. foreign relations.