On April 12 the International Law Institute hosted a conference and discussion on the release of Ambassador John Maresca's [Ret.] new book "The Unknown Peace Agreement: How the Helsinki–Geneva–Vienna–Paris Negotiations of the CSCE Produced the Final Peace Agreement to formally concluded World War Two in Europe".

The agreements setting the foundations of relations between Post Soviet Russia and the Western nations, is as critical and sensitive today, as it was 30 years ago.

The agreement, formally known as the Joint Declaration of Twenty Two States, signed by their heads of state or government, including George H W Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev on November 19, 1990 in Paris, this "peace treaty" ended World War II. The chief US negotiator of this agreement and many others, Ambassador Maresca has had a most distinguished career, twice Chef du Cabinet to NATO Secretaries General, and rector of the UN University for Peace, possibly most noteworthy was his appointment in early 1991 by Secretary James Baker as special envoy to open US relations with the newly independent states of the former USSR. He was the first American official to visit these countries, including Ukraine. His assistant throughout this mission was Marie Yovanovich, later US ambassador to Ukraine.

Ambassador presented his book and the "Baker mission". He was introduced by his former colleague Avis Bohlen, former assistant secretary of state and American ambassador to Bulgaria, and daughter of Charles Bohlen, who was once Jack Maresca's boss in the Department.

 
Find out more about the book here 


                 

         Watch the full discussion here