ABSTRACT
Agreements and treaties are signed by heads of state and submitted to the state parliaments for ratification. The Council of Heads of State has to date considered more than 450 agreements, most submitted in packages by the councils of Heads of Government, Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs, and other working commissions. Most of the agreements, and even the core framework treaties, have lacked the political will or machinery to carry them out, making the commonwealth of independent states structure an impotent structural shell so far, despite Russia's determined efforts to consolidate the organization into a substitute for the Soviet Union. The principal political structural instrument, the Commonwealth Charter, is a loosely worded conceptual document, hastily drafted by the Belovezh Forest trio. The original copy is being kept in the archives of the government of the Republic of Belarus, which will send an authorized copy to the states who have signed the said protocol.
