A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order

by Richard N. Haass

two alliances also reached an understanding governing political order in Europe. The Final Act that emerged in 1975 in Helsinki from the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe was a remarkable document.7 On one level it reads as a tribute to the classic Westphalian notion of order. It is a multilateral accord premised on state sovereignty, the impermissibility of the threat or use of force, the inviolability of borders, respect for the territorial integrity of all European states, a commitment to the peaceful settlement of disputes, and acceptance of the principle of nonintervention in one another’s internal affairs. The one exception to this traditional approach was a commitment by all governments to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms within their own borders.