In: Economics
. Compare NATO with ECOWAS. What do they have in common? What are the most important differences?
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is also known as the North
Atlantic Alliance is the military alliance between 30 North
american and European Countries. The main purpose of this formal
intergovernmental military alliance was to defend each other from
the chances of Communist Soviet Union taking control over their
nation.
The NATO was formed as the response to the rising power of Soviet
Union by capturing small sovereigns by using their powerful forces
to protect themself from any invasion of foreign countries. To
tackle this challange the 30 North American and European countries
on 4 april 1949 signed the North Atlantic Treaty.
Whereas the Economic Community of West African States, better known
as ECOWAS, is a union of 15 West African countries with political
and economic motive. The ECOWAS was established on may 28 1975 by
the treaty of lagos. The very idea of the ECOWAS was to gain the
collective self-sufficiency of the its member states.
The vision of ECOWAS is the creation of region without border where
the people has the access to its resources and is able to exploit
it by creating oppurtunities under a sustainable environment.
ECOWAS was intended to govern the region in accordance with the
principles of democracy, rule of law and good governance to make a
welfare region.
The ECOWAS has many specialised agencies, such as: West African
Health Organisation (WAHO), West African Monetary Agency (WAMA),
Inter-governmental Action Group against Money Laundary and
Terrorist Financing in West Africa (GIABA), ECOWAS Gender and
Development Centre, ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre and
etc.
Both the NATO and ECOWAS in common has many similarities as well as
differences.
SIMILARITIES:
Both the NATO and ECOWAS gained considerable scope in peace keeping
and peace enforcement. Both have gathered the significant
experience in military interventions.
The NATO's intervention in Kosovo and intervention of ECOWAS in
Liberia and Sierra Leone are identical in two inportant aspects.
firstly, Both the organisation has acted illegaly in terms if their
own constitunt instruments. Secondly, The intervention was
violative of U.N charter because the interventions were not
authorised by the U.N Security Council.
DIFFERENCES:
Although the NATO and ECOWAS has many distinctions as well, some of
them are mentioned here. All that, the NATO needed is just the
encouragement from the U.N to gain political acceptability. After
that it can do any mammoth job by itself and does not need U.N.
NATO can do job likely or better than U.N. But the situation of
ECOWAS is different, it needs the approval and willingness of the
U.N and the international community to commit resources. Such
commitments are principle for the success and we can call ECOWAS is
a dependant organisation, whereas NATO is independant as it does
not need such permissions.
As compared to NATO, ECOWAS is less powerful and independant.
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