Legal and political nature of Eurasian integration

Abstract

The Eurasian Economic Union was formed in 2015. After the establishment of the new regional organisations, it triggered scientific engagements both from political and economic circles. Although some legal scholars, both in Russia and the Western world, researched some aspects of the EAEU from the institutional and substantive side, there is still a lack of understanding of the EAEU as a separate legal order. This thesis attempts to fill this gap by studying the EAEU through its own conceptual frameworks of authoritarian supranationalism. Illustrating both the history and legal structure of the Eurasian integration, the thesis highlights the different nature of the concepts that have shaped the evolution of the EAEU. The thesis combines history, politics, and law to demonstrate the sui generis essence of the EAEU legal order. For this purpose, particular attention is given to supranational law-making, adjudication, and direct applicability of the EAEU norms. Methodologically, it opted for interdisciplinary research to appraise the EAEU as comprehensively as possible. However, the main argumentation remained legal based on doctrinal-legal research. The thesis concludes that the Eurasian Union has a relatively distinct theoretical background compared to other regional organisations. Thus, instead of illustrating the EAEU institutions' dysfunctionalities compared to EU institutional law, the thesis answers why the institutions of the EAEU have been shaped differently. The thesis's primary claim is that the EAEU is a new sui generis case for comparative international law predominantly based on Russian approaches to international law. Therefore, it is another self-contained legal order and has the capability to consolidate post-soviet Eurasian states around Russia and its illiberal understanding of international law.