We have gone substantially and deeply into the business of constructing a socialist state based on the rule of law. . . . Soviet democracy is to acquire a firm, normative base. This means such acts as the Law on Freedom of Conscience, on glasnost, on public associations and organizations, and on much else. There are now no people in places of imprisonment in the country who have been sentenced for their political or religious convictions. . . . We intend to expand the Soviet Union’s participation in the monitoring mechanism on human rights in the United Nations and within the framework of the pan-European process. We consider that the jurisdiction of the International Court in The Hague with respect to interpreting and applying agreements in the field of human rights should be obligatory for all states.

. . . On the whole, our credo is as follows: Political problems should be solved only by political means, and human problems only in a humane way. . . . Now about the most important topic, without which no problem of the coming century can be resolved: disarmament. . . .

Today I can inform you of the following: The Soviet Union has made a decision on reducing its armed forces. In the next two years, their numerical strength will be reduced by 500,000 persons, and the volume of conventional arms will also be cut considerably. These reductions will be made on a unilateral basis. . . . By agreement with our allies in the Warsaw Pact, we have made the decision to withdraw six tank divisions from the GDR [East Germany], Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, and to disband them by 1991. Assault landing formations and units, and a number of others, including assault river-crossing forces, with their armaments and combat equipment, will also be withdrawn from the groups of Soviet forces situated in those countries.

Source: Address by Mikhail Gorbachev at the 43rd U.N. General Assembly Session, December 7, 1988, http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116224.