ABSTRACT
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was created in December 1991 coincident in time with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Formed by an agreement between the leaders of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, the CIS subsequently came to embrace all the post-Soviet states bar the three Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 1 Despite this comprehensive membership and the fact that the CIS encompasses a once highly-integrated geographic area, it has since its formation registered only modest results in multilateral interstate cooperation.
