The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is an international organization founded in 1991 that does not have supranational powers. In the CIS, 11 of the 15 exiled Soviet Union republics are included as participants.
Instruction manual
1
The reason for the emergence of this organization in the international legal field is the collapse of the USSR and the formation on its space of 15 new sovereign states, closely connected in the political, economic, humanitarian spheres, due to the existence of centuries in the framework of one country. The deep integration of the republics predetermined the objective interest of the new subjects of international law in cooperation in various fields of economy, politics, culture on the basis of equal cooperation and respect for each other's sovereignty.
The CIS was founded on December 8, 1991, when the heads of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus signed the so-called. The “Bialowieza Agreement”, the text of which stated the abolition of the Soviet Union and the formation on its basis of a new form of interstate cooperation of the former Soviet republics. This document was called the "Agreement on the Creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States", and by 1994 it was ratified and included in the CIS by 8 more states - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
2
On December 21, 1991, at the Alma-Ata summit, the heads of 11 former union republics signed a declaration on the goals and principles of the CIS and a protocol to the agreement on the creation of the CIS. In 1993, the CIS charter was adopted in Minsk, the organization’s main regulatory document governing its activities. According to Art. 7. of this charter, the CIS member states are divided into the founding states and the member states of the Commonwealth. The founders of the CIS are countries that have ratified the agreement on its creation of December 8, 1991 and the protocol to the agreement of December 21, 1991. The CIS member states are those of its founders that have accepted the obligations of the charter. The charter was ratified by 10 out of 12 CIS members, with the exception of Ukraine and Turkmenistan.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania refused to participate in the CIS initially, choosing the European integration vector. Ukraine, being one of the co-founders and a member of the CIS, refused to ratify the CIS charter, and is not a member of the community legally. In 2009, under the influence of events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia withdrew from membership in the CIS.
Thus, as of 2014, 11 states are members of the CIS: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Members of the CIS are all of the above states, except Turkmenistan and Ukraine.
