Rights Conference to Open in Glow of Soviet Reforms : Diplomacy: Admission of Baltic states tops the agenda for 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation.

Foreign ministers from Europe, Canada and the United States gather here today to launch a major human rights conference in the after-glow of democracy’s recent triumphs in the Soviet Union but amid growing concern about what the dizzying changes may have brought.

The crumbling of authoritarian power following last month’s abortive coup against President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has transformed the mood in a country that had always been a highly controversial choice to host such a prestigious meeting on human rights.

The collapse of communism, the virtual lack of new political prisoners in the Soviet Union and a significant policy shift by Moscow on the policing of human rights violations have brought a whiff of euphoria to delegates attending the third human rights meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).

As its first order of business, the 35-nation forum is expected to accept immediate membership of three additional nations--the newly independent Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Soviet Foreign Minister Boris N. Pankin told reporters last week that Moscow would support independent membership for the three states in both the CSCE and the United Nations. Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky confirmed this on Monday to a visiting U.S. congressional delegation.

“Petrovsky said the Baltics will become members tomorrow,” Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) told a news conference.

Admission of the three countries is a prime U.S. goal.

According to the British news agency Reuters, diplomats at the United Nations said a vote on the admission issue in the Security Council could come as early as Wednesday or Thursday. Then, if the council grants the expected approval, the General Assembly will vote, perhaps when its 46th session opens on Sept. 17. A two-thirds vote would be needed for admission.

At least in theory, fallout from last month’s failed putsch is also expected to give delegates a greater chance to protect human rights than at any time in the conference’s history.

Last week, Pankin and other senior officials signaled a major reversal of the longstanding policy that the Soviet Union’s treatment of its own citizens is purely an internal matter. For decades, the Soviet Union’s Communist leadership rejected accusations of human rights violations as interference in a country’s internal affairs. As recently as early August, Soviet officialdom used these grounds to resist CSCE and European Community moves to intervene in the Yugoslav crisis.

Now that policy has given way, thanks to a realization that international pressure helped to bring about the coup’s defeat, and a sudden concern for the fate of large Russian minorities in the Baltics and the eight other Soviet republics that have already declared independence.

“We have to establish a mechanism to guarantee human rights,” Pankin said. “National guarantees are not enough. What we need is international law . . . and the priority of international law over national law will be reaffirmed in a very powerful way.”

For human rights activists, another favorable sign is the inclusion in the Soviet delegation of Sergei Kovalev, a former political prisoner. But as delegates gathered for today’s meeting, they also voiced concern about new dangers to human rights that lurk in the debris of Europe’s Communist dictatorships.

German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher is expected to press CSCE member states to establish mechanisms that would allow the use of international observers in areas where basic rights were believed to be violated.

Pressure to give the CSCE greater institutional clout stems from recent failures to resolve the Yugoslav crisis and worry about similar ethnic and nationalistic tensions in far-flung areas of the Soviet Union now that central power has been sharply diminished.

Hoyer expressed concern about developments in Georgia, where nationalist President Zviad Gamsakhurdia has suppressed opposition and amassed major powers as he pushes his republic toward full independence from the Soviet Union.

“No member of the delegation left Georgia feeling confident that democracy (there) was on the ascendancy,” Hoyer said.

Members of independent human rights groups also expressed concern about developments in the southern Soviet republics.

“They’re replacing one ideology with another--nationalism--and the same kind of undisciplined force will continue against people,” said Jeri Laber, executive director of Helsinki Watch, a human rights watchdog group.

“It’s already happening in Georgia and (Moldava),” she said.

She said her group would urge investigations into the deployment of Soviet military forces against civilian protesters during recent years and press for criminal proceedings in those cases where excessive force was used.

The lack of any action in those instances, Laber said, led directly to August’s coup attempt.

“It gave the plotters the idea they could take over the government and get away with it,” she said.