In an international legal order dominated by states, the individual citizen is generally viewed as lacking international legal personality. It is true with little exception that an individual cannot appear in an international forum, political or judicial, to press his rights. Despite the dramatically increased emphasis upon international protection of basic human rights, individuals have been given access to international dispute-settlement machinery in only a few isolated instances within the United Nations system, and on a regional level pursuant to the European Convention on Human Rights.1

On August 1, 1975 the Chiefs of State and other high representatives of 33 European countries, the United States, and Canada signed the Final Act of The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Helsinki. This event, described as the largest meeting of European leaders since the Congress of Vienna or by the more enthusiastic as the largest such meeting in history, had been little discussed in the North American press and caught the American public largely unprepared. Logic dictated that such an impressive gathering had to have an equally impressive purpose, and editorial writers struggled to explain the significance of the occasion. The general conclusion was that the President had demeaned himself by recognizing Soviet postwar hegemony in Eastern Europe without any substantial quid pro quo. George Ball called it “a defeat for the West.” Much of this comment in the media was without benefit of the complex document actually signed at Helsinki, covering sixty printed pages, which was made available to the public only one week prior to the signing. The Department of State, concerned that euphoria over this event might lead to increased pressure for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Europe and for other forms of unilateral disarmament, played down the Conference as an exercsie which was primarily of interest to the allies of the United States and which in any case had not produced documents of a legally binding character. For those determined to oppose the Conference, this appeared to be some form of coverup, whereas to those who saw merit in the texts, this seemed to depreciate the usefulness of some important steps in the right direction. Confusion over a document as carefully drawn, as vague and full of interrelationships and loopholes as is the Final Act is natural, and the results of the Conference should provide many a scholar a rich harvest of material for study for years to come.

It can be said today that a unilateral most-favored-nation (MFN) clause is only of historical significance. The first unilateral MFN clauses appeared in the seventeenth century in the capitulation treaties with the Ottoman Empire and in the agreements between the French East India Company and the Mogul Empire. However, it was in the latter half of the nineteenth century that unilateral MFN clauses were most extensively concluded between the European Powers and Asian countries. These unilateral clauses served as an instrument for securing “equality in exploitation” in the economically backward regions of Asia where several of the capital exporting countries were in competition and conflict with each other.

The commercial contacts of foreign governments and their agencies with the American economy are steadily growing in number and importance. In addition to the numerous foreign government-owned airlines and shipping concerns doing business in the United States, foreign government ownership of, or participation in, industrial, banking, and trading corporations doing business here is substantial. Furthermore, in more and more instances U.S. petroleum and other imports are purchased from foreign governmental entities whose contacts with the United States will probably become more extensive. Foreign governments, directly or through purchasing entities, are making huge annual purchases of American agricultural exports. The U.S. capital market continues to handle substantial volumes of borrowing by foreign governments and their instrumentalities.