Belavezha Accords Belavezha Accords The Belavezha Accords (, , ) is the agreement that declared the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as effectively ceasing to exist and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place as an successor entity. It was signed at the state dacha near Viskuli in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on December 8, 1991, by the leaders of three of the four republics-signatories of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR — Russian President Boris Yeltsin and First Deputy Prime Minister of RSFSR/Russian Federation Gennady Burbulis, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk and Prime Minister of Ukraine Vitold Fokin, Belarusian
Powers of the President of the United States Richard Nixon tried to use executive privilege as a reason for not turning over subpoenaed audio tapes to a special prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, the Supreme Court ruled in "United States v. Nixon" that privilege was not absolute. The Court reasoned that the judiciary’s interest in the “fair administration of criminal justice” outweighed President Nixon’s interest in keeping the evidence secret. Later President Bill Clinton lost in federal court when he tried to assert privilege in the Lewinsky affair. The Supreme Court affirmed this in "Clinton v. Jones", which denied the use of privilege in cases of civil suits.