1.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
2.
Censorship
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Governments, private organizations and individuals may engage in censorship. When an individual such as an author or other creator engages in censorship of their own works or speech, Censorship could be direct or indirect, in which case it is referred to as soft censorship. Direct censorship may or may not be legal, depending on the type, location, there are no laws against self-censorship. In 399 BC, Greek philosopher, Socrates, defied attempts by the Greek state to censor his philosophical teachings and was sentenced to death by drinking a poison, hemlock. Socrates student, Plato, is said to have advocated censorship in his essay on The Republic, in contrast to Plato, Greek playwright Euripides defended the true liberty of freeborn men, including the right to speak freely. In 1766, Sweden became the first country to abolish censorship by law, the rationale for censorship is different for various types of information censored, Moral censorship is the removal of materials that are obscene or otherwise considered morally questionable. Pornography, for example, is often censored under this rationale, especially child pornography, Military censorship is the process of keeping military intelligence and tactics confidential and away from the enemy. This is used to counter espionage, which is the process of gleaning military information, political censorship occurs when governments hold back information from their citizens. This is often done to control over the populace and prevent free expression that might foment rebellion. Religious censorship is the means by which any material considered objectionable by a religion is removed. This often involves a dominant religion forcing limitations on less prevalent ones, alternatively, one religion may shun the works of another when they believe the content is not appropriate for their religion. Strict censorship existed in the Eastern Bloc, throughout the bloc, the various ministries of culture held a tight rein on their writers. Cultural products there reflected the needs of the state. Party-approved censors exercised strict control in the early years, in the Stalinist period, even the weather forecasts were changed if they suggested that the sun might not shine on May Day. Under Nicolae Ceauşescu in Romania, weather reports were doctored so that the temperatures were not seen to rise above or fall below the levels which dictated that work must stop. Independent journalism did not exist in the Soviet Union until Mikhail Gorbachev became its leader, pravda, the predominant newspaper in the Soviet Union, had a monopoly. Foreign newspapers were available if they were published by Communist Parties sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Possession and use of copying machines was tightly controlled in order to hinder production and distribution of samizdat, illegal self-published books, possession of even a single samizdat manuscript such as a book by Andrei Sinyavsky was a serious crime which might involve a visit from the KGB
3.
Voting machine
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A voting machine is a machine used to register and tabulate votes. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is more common to use electronic voting machines. Traditionally, a machine has been defined by the mechanism the system uses to cast votes. Voting machines have different levels of usability, security, efficiency and accuracy, certain systems may be more or less accessible to all voters, or not accessible to those voters with certain types of disabilities. They can also have an effect on the ability to oversee elections. The first major proposal for the use of voting machines came from the Chartists in 1838, among the radical reforms called for in The Peoples Charter were universal suffrage and voting by secret ballot. The Chartist voting machine, attributed to Benjamin Jolly of 19 York Street in Bath and this matched the requirements of a British parliamentary election. Each voter was to cast his vote by dropping a ball into the appropriate hole in the top of the machine by the candidates name. Each voter could vote once because each voter was given just one brass ball. The ball advanced a clockwork counter for the candidate as it passed through the machine. In 1875, Henry Spratt of Kent received a U. S. patent for a machine that presented the ballot as an array of push buttons. Spratts machine was designed for a typical British election with a plurality race on the ballot. In 1881, Anthony Beranek of Chicago patented the first voting machine appropriate for use in an election in the United States. Beraneks machine presented an array of buttons to the voter, with one row per office on the ballot. Interlocks behind each row prevented voting for more than one candidate per race, a document ballot voting system can allow for manual or electronic tabulation. Punched card systems employ a card and a small clipboard-sized device for recording votes, voters punch holes in the cards with a ballot marking device. After voting, the voter may place the ballot in a ballot box, the idea of voting by punching holes on paper or cards originated in the 1890s and inventors continued to explore this in the years that followed. By the late 1890s John McTammanys voting machine was used widely in several states, in this machine, votes were recorded by punching holes in a roll of paper comparable to those used in player pianos, and then tabulated after the polls closed using a pneumatic mechanism
4.
Ballot box
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When very large ballot papers are used, there may be a feeder mechanism to assist in the deposit of the paper into the box. Transparent ballot boxes may be used in order for people to be able to witness that the box is empty prior to the start of the election, at the close of the election all boxes can be taken to a single location for tallying and the result declared. Alternately the boxes can be tallied at the station, with individual stations announcing their results to be tallied. Ballot boxes are obsolete in some jurisdictions because of the increase in electronic voting. The word ballot derives from voting based upon the use of a small ball instead of a voting paper. The first British secret ballot using ballot papers and a box was held in Pontefract on 15 August 1872. In a ministerial by-election following his appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the original ballot box, sealed in wax with a liquorice stamp, is held at Pontefract Museum. See Checkbox Ballot Election fraud Four boxes of liberty Secret ballot Media related to Ballot boxes at Wikimedia Commons
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Smart card
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A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card is any pocket-sized card that has embedded integrated circuits. Smart cards are made of plastic, generally polyvinyl chloride, but sometimes polyethylene terephthalate based polyesters, since April 2009, a Japanese company has manufactured reusable financial smart cards made from paper. Smart cards can be either contact or contactless smart card, Smart cards can provide personal identification, authentication, data storage, and application processing. Smart cards may provide strong security authentication for single sign-on within large organizations, in 1968 and 1969 Helmut Gröttrup and Jürgen Dethloff jointly filed patents for the automated chip card. Roland Moreno patented the memory card concept in 1974, an important patent for smart cards with a microprocessor and memory as used today was filed by Jürgen Dethloff in 1976 and granted as USP4105156 in 1978. Three years later, Motorola used this patent in its CP8, at that time, Bull had 1,200 patents related to smart cards. In 2001, Bull sold its CP8 division together with its patents to Schlumberger, in 2006, Axalto and Gemplus, at the time the worlds top two smart card manufacturers, merged and became Gemalto. The first mass use of the cards was as a card for payment in French pay phones. After the Télécarte, microchips were integrated into all French Carte Bleue debit cards in 1992, customers inserted the card into the merchants point of sale terminal, then typed the personal identification number, before the transaction was accepted. Only very limited transactions are processed without a PIN, smart-card-based electronic purse systems store funds on the card so that readers do not need network connectivity. They entered European service in the mid-1990s and they have been common in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, UK, Denmark and Portugal. Since the 1990s, smart-cards have been the Subscriber Identity Modules used in European GSM mobile phone equipment, Mobile phones are widely used in Europe, so smart cards have become very common. Europay MasterCard Visa -compliant cards and equipment are widespread, the United States started using the EMV technology in 2014. Historically, in 1993 several international payment companies agreed to develop specifications for debit and credit cards. The original brands were MasterCard, Visa, and Europay, the first version of the EMV system was released in 1994. In 1998 the specifications became stable, eMVcos purpose is to assure the various financial institutions and retailers that the specifications retain backward compatibility with the 1998 version. EMVco upgraded the specifications in 2000 and 2004, EMV compliant cards were first accepted into Malaysia in 2005 and later into United States in 2014. MasterCard was the first company that was allowed to use the technology in the United States, the United States has felt pushed to use the technology because of the increase in identity theft
6.
Nursultan Nazarbayev
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Nursultan Äbishuly Nazarbayev is the President of Kazakhstan. He holds the title Leader of the Nation, in April 2015, Nazarbayev was re-elected with almost 98% of the vote. Nazarbayev has suppressed dissent, been accused of human rights abuses by several human rights organizations, no election held in Kazakhstan since independence has met international standards. In 2010 he announced reforms to encourage a multi-party system, in January 2017, President Nazarbayev proposed constitutional reforms that would delegate powers to the parliament. Nazarbayev was born in Chemolgan, a town near Almaty. His father was a labourer who worked for a wealthy local family until Soviet rule confiscated the familys farmland in the 1930s during Joseph Stalins collectivization policy. Following this, his father took the family to the mountains to live out a nomadic existence and his father avoided compulsory military service due to a withered arm he sustained when putting out a fire. At the end of World War II the family returned to the village of Chemolgan and he performed well at school, and was sent to a boarding school in Kaskelen. After leaving school he took up a one-year, government-funded scholarship at the Karaganda Steel Mill in Temirtau and he also spent time training at a steel plant in Dniprodzerzhynsk, and therefore was away from Temirtau when riots broke out there over working conditions. By 20, he was earning a good wage doing incredibly heavy. He joined the Communist Party in 1962, becoming a prominent member of the Young Communist League, and full-time worker for the party, and attended the Karagandy Polytechnic Institute. He was appointed secretary of the Communist Party Committee of the Karaganda Metallurgical Kombinat in 1972, in his role as a bureaucrat, Nazarbayev dealt with legal papers, logistical problems and industrial disputes, as well as meeting workers to solve individual issues. In 1984, Nazarbayev became the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, under Dinmukhamed Kunayev, at the 16th session of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan in January 1986, Nazarbayev criticized Askar Kunayev, head of the Academy of Sciences, for not reforming his department. Dinmukhamed Kunayev, Nazarbayevs boss and Askars brother, felt deeply angered and betrayed, Kunayev went to Moscow and demanded Nazarbayevs dismissal while Nazarbayevs supporters campaigned for Kunayevs dismissal and Nazarbayevs promotion. Kunayev was ousted in 1986 and replaced by a Russian, Gennady Kolbin, Nazarbayev was named party leader on 22 June 1989-- only the second Kazakh to hold the post. He was Chairman of the Supreme Soviet from 22 February to 24 April 1990, on 24 April 1990, Nazarbayev was named the first President of Kazakhstan by the Supreme Soviet. He supported Russian President Boris Yeltsin against the coup in August 1991 by Soviet hardliners. Nazarbayev was close enough to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for Gorbachev to consider him for the post of Vice President of the Soviet Union, however, the Soviet Union disintegrated following the failed coup, though Nazarbayev was highly concerned with maintaining the close economic ties between Kazakhstan and Russia
7.
Bicameralism
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A bicameral legislature is one in which the legislators are divided into two separate assemblies, chambers or houses. As of 2015, somewhat less than half of the national legislatures are bicameral. Often, the members of the two chambers are elected or selected using different methods, which vary from country to country and this can often lead to the two chambers having very different compositions of members. However, in many Westminster system parliaments, the house to which the executive is responsible can overrule the other house, some legislatures lie in between these two positions, with one house only able to overrule the other under certain circumstances. For example, one house would represent the aristocracy, and the other would represent the commoners as was the case in the Kingdom of England. Others, such as France under the Ancien Régime had a legislature known as the Estates General, which consisted of separate chambers for the clergymen, the nobility. The Founding Fathers of the United States also favoured a bicameral legislature, the idea was to have the Senate be wealthier and wiser. Benjamin Rush saw this though, and noted that, this type of dominion is almost always connected with opulence, the Senate was created to be a stabilising force, elected not by mass electors, but selected by the State legislators. Senators would be more knowledgeable and more sort of republican nobility—and a counter to what Madison saw as the fickleness. He noted further that the use of the Senate is to consist in its proceeding with more coolness, with system and with more wisdom. Madisons argument led the Framers to grant the Senate prerogatives in foreign policy, an area where steadiness, discretion, the Senate was chosen by state legislators, and senators had to possess a significant amount of property in order to be deemed worthy and sensible enough for the position. In fact, it was not until the year 1913 that the 17th Amendment was passed, as part of the Great Compromise, they invented a new rationale for bicameralism in which the Senate would have states represented equally, and the House would have them represented by population. Many nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British three-tier model, nevertheless, the older justification for second chambers—providing opportunities for second thoughts about legislation—has survived. An example of controversy regarding a second chamber has been the debate over the powers of the Canadian Senate or the election of the Senate of France. The relationship between the two chambers varies, in cases, they have equal power, while in others. The first tends to be the case in federal systems and those with presidential governments, the latter tends to be the case in unitary states with parliamentary systems. In the United States both houses of the U. S and this is due to their original location in the two-story building that was to house them. In Canada, the country as a whole is divided into a number of Senate Divisions, each with a different number of Senators, Senators in Canada are not elected by the people but are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister
8.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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Legislature
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A legislature is a deliberative assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. Legislatures form important parts of most governments, in the separation of model, they are often contrasted with the executive. Laws enacted by legislatures are known as legislation, legislatures observe and steer governing actions and usually have exclusive authority to amend the budget or budgets involved in the process. The members of a legislature are called legislators, each chamber of legislature consists of a number of legislators who use some form of parliamentary procedure to debate political issues and vote on proposed legislation. There must be a number of legislators present to carry out these activities. Some of the responsibilities of a legislature, such as giving first consideration to newly proposed legislation, are delegated to committees made up of small selections of the legislators. The members of a legislature usually represent different political parties, the members from each party generally meet as a caucus to organize their internal affairs, the internal organization of a legislature is also shaped by the informal norms that are shared by its members. Legislatures vary widely in the amount of power they wield, compared to other political players such as judiciaries, militaries. In 2009, political scientists M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig constructed a Parliamentary Powers Index in an attempt to quantify the different degrees of power among national legislatures, such a system renders the legislature more powerful. Legislatures will sometime delegate their legislative power to administrative or executive agencies, legislatures are made up of individual members, known as legislators, who vote on proposed laws. For example, a legislature that has 100 seats has 100 members, by extension, an electoral district that elects a single legislator can also be described as a seat, as, for, example, in the phrases safe seat and marginal seat. In parliamentary systems of government, the executive is responsible to the legislature which may remove it with a vote of no confidence, names for national legislatures include parliament, congress, diet and assembly. A legislature which operates as a unit is unicameral, one divided into two chambers is bicameral, and one divided into three chambers is tricameral. In bicameral legislatures, one chamber is considered the upper house. In federations, the upper house typically represents the component states. This is a case with the legislature of the European Union. Tricameral legislatures are rare, the Massachusetts Governors Council still exists, tetracameral legislatures no longer exist, but they were previously used in Scandinavia. Legislatures vary widely in their size, among national legislatures, Chinas National Peoples Congress is the largest with 2987 members, while Vatican Citys Pontifical Commission is the smallest with 7
10.
Electronic voting
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Electronic voting is voting using electronic means to either aid or take care of the chores of casting and counting votes. Electronic voting technology can include punched cards, optical scan voting systems and it can also involve transmission of ballots and votes via telephones, private computer networks, or the Internet. Many insecurities have been found in commercial voting machines, such as using a default administration password, cases have also been reported of machines making unpredictable, inconsistent errors. Electronic voting technology can speed the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of paying staff to count votes manually and can provide improved accessibility for disabled voters. However, there has been contention, especially in the United States, in addition, electronic voting has been criticised as unnecessary and expensive to introduce. Several countries have cancelled e-voting systems or decided against a large-scale rollout, notably the Netherlands, Electronic voting systems for electorates have been in use since the 1960s when punched card systems debuted. Their first widespread use was in the USA where 7 counties switched to this method for the 1964 presidential election, the newer optical scan voting systems allow a computer to count a voters mark on a ballot. DRE voting machines which collect and tabulate votes in a machine, are used by all voters in all elections in Brazil and India, and also on a large scale in Venezuela. They have been used on a scale in the Netherlands but have been decommissioned after public concerns. Sometimes called a document ballot voting system, paper-based voting systems originated as a system where votes are cast and counted by hand, with the advent of electronic tabulation came systems where paper cards or sheets could be marked by hand, but counted electronically. These systems included punched card voting, marksense and later digital pen voting systems, Systems including a ballot marking device can incorporate different forms of assistive technology. In 2004, Open Voting Consortium demonstrated the Dechert Design a General Public License open source paper ballot printing system with open source bar codes on each ballot, after the election it produces a tabulation of the voting data stored in a removable memory component and as a printed copy. The system may provide a means for transmitting individual ballots or vote totals to a central location for consolidating and reporting results from precincts at the central location. These systems use a precinct count method tabulates ballots at the polling place. They typically tabulate ballots as they are cast and print the results after the close of polling, in 1996, after tests conducted on more than 50 municipalities, the Brazilian Electoral Justice has launched their voting machine. Since 2000, all Brazilian voters are able to use the ballot boxes to choose their candidates. In 2010 presidential election, which had more than 135 million voters, the electronic ballot box is made up of two micro-terminals which are connected by a 5-meter cable. Externally, the micro-terminals have only a keyboard, which does not accept any command executed by the simultaneous pressure of more than one key
11.
Commonwealth of Independent States
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The Commonwealth of Independent States, also called the Russian Commonwealth, is a regional organization formed during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Nine out of the 15 former Soviet Republics are member states, Georgia withdrew its membership in 2008, while the Baltic states chose not to participate. The CIS has few supranational powers but aims to be more than a purely symbolic organization, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realms of trade, finance, lawmaking and it has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention. Furthermore, eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area, three organizations are under the overview of the CIS, namely the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Union State. While the first and the second are military and economic alliances, in March 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, proposed a federation by holding a referendum to preserve the Union as the Union of Sovereign States. The new treaty signing never happened as the Communist Party hardliners staged a coup in August that year. Following the events of August, the republics had declared their independence fearing another coup, at the same time they announced that the new alliance would be open to all republics of the former Soviet Union, and to other nations sharing the same goals. The CIS charter stated that all the members were sovereign and independent nations, Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993. At this point,12 of the 15 former Soviet Republics participated in the CIS, the three Baltic states did not, reflecting their governments view that the post-1940 Soviet occupation of their territory was illegitimate. In May 2009, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine joined the Eastern Partnership, there are nine full member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, the charter formalised the concept of membership, a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter. Turkmenistan has not ratified the charter and changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognised international neutrality status, thus it does not regard itself as a member of the CIS. In 1993 Ukraine became an Associate Member of CIS, following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced. In September 2015 the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in CIS on a selective basis, since that month Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building. Since its inception, one of the goals of the CIS has been to provide a forum for discussing issues related to the social. To achieve this goal member states have agreed to promote and protect human rights, even before the 1995 human rights treaty, the Charter of the CIS that was adopted in 1991 created, in article 33, a Human Rights Commission sitting in Minsk, Belarus. This was confirmed by decision of the Council of Heads of States of the CIS in 1993, in 1995, the CIS adopted a human rights treaty that includes civil and political as well as social and economic human rights. This treaty entered force in 1998
