From Coexistence to Détente and Cooperation. Some Lessons from the Cold War for a Contemporary Era of Clashing Cultures or Colliding Civilisations

Abstract

Peaceful coexistence, as juridical concept, denotes a factual, existential condition with normative legal consequences. The Soviet public campaign in behalf of peaceful coexistence began in the United Nations and other main international arenas, public and private - in the UN General Assembly and its Sixth (Legal) Committee in behalf of an immediate act of codification of postulated international law principles of peaceful coexistence. The initial debates within the ILA over peaceful coexistence as postulated imperative principle of contemporary international law revealed, at the opening exchanges, a clear intellectual-legal difference between Western and non-Western jurists. On many views - particularly those of lay (non-legal) political players from the new countries outside the two great opposing blocs of the Cold War period, the peaceful coexistence five principles amounted to a much more succinct, conveniently accessible. Keywords:Cold War; international law principles; peaceful coexistence; Soviet Union