Supranational Authority Research Articles

Constructing African Union Law and Rethinking Supranationalism in African Integration: What Lessons from the European Union?

Abstract This Article examines the development and scope of African Union (AU) law and its role as a facilitator of and contributor to regional integration in Africa. The Article addresses several interlinked questions relating, but not limited, to the sources and foundations of AU law, the role of AU policy organs in the making of AU law, the extent to which EU law presents a comparative framework or useful precedent for analysing and understanding AU law, and the role of supranationalism in the economic and political integration of its member states and in the development of AU law. The Article argues that it is necessary to amend the AU Constitutive Act and other relevant AU legal instruments to enhance the supranational authority and legislative powers of the AU. It concludes that AU supranationalism needs to be rethought, but it need not uncritically mimic the EU’s approach to supranationalism in every respect.

An Overview of the Eurasian Economic Union as an Economic Integration Supranational Organization

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), founded on May 29, 2014, represents a significant effort to enhance economic growth and prosperity among former Soviet states, notably Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Russia. Tracing its origin from the dissolution of the USSR and the subsequent establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 1991, the EAEU emerged after overcoming initial challenges faced by the CIS, formalizing its structure in 2015. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the EAEU's historical evolution, institutional framework, and the dynamics of its economic integration. By examining the EAEU's impact on member economies, including achievements like the creation of a unified labour market and increased trade volumes, the study stresses its role in advancing regional economic cooperation. It also addresses persistent challenges such as disparities in energy resources and the union's limited supranational authority. Furthermore, this paper draws comparisons between the EAEU and the European Union (EU), offering perceptions into their differing organizational structures and levels of integration. Through this comparative lens, it elucidates how each union shapes regional dynamics and influences global economic relations.

Integration, supranational authority, and human rights

ABSTRACT Ernst Haas was intrigued by the possibility that international governance could promote peace and stability. International human rights regimes are one such system of governance. Haas was the first political scientist to analyse closely, in his 1970 book, an international body for the adjudication of human rights claims. He concluded that the ILO mechanism for hearing claims was ineffective because states largely failed to implement its rulings. Today, three regional human rights courts receive a growing number of petitions and routinely find that states have violated rights contained in the applicable regional and international treaties. Integration in the domain of human rights courts can be tracked along three axes: vertical incorporation of international human rights into national law; horizontal integration as the regional courts pay attention to and cite each other; and effectiveness, evaluated here in terms of state compliance with judgments. The empirical discussion focuses on these dimensions and their development in three functioning regional human rights courts. Linkages across the regional courts have expanded, producing a global human rights commons. But as Haas might have predicted, the degree to which democracy has taken root in a region conditions the effectiveness of its human rights court.

Наднациональный уровень регулирования в реализации общей рыболовной политики ЕС

The article examines the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) of the European Union in the context of its developments at the supranational level of governance. Although the CFP is rarely scrutinized by political scientists, the policy has a considerable political dimension due to states’ sovereign interests in the seas, their connections to the social stability of coastal communities, and the escalating struggle over access to the overexploited marine bioresources. The political basis of the Common Fisheries Policy lies in the principle of relative stability which was established in the early stages of the policy development and represents a political compromise between member states regarding catch shares. The current institutional framework of the CFP results from a recent reform initiated in 2013, influenced by the Lisbon Treaty, and eventually entered into force in 2019. This reform finalized the introduction of the sustainable development agenda into policy, which changes the institutional balance and strengthens the role of supranational authorities. Hence, the Common Fisheries Policy may be characterized as a predominantly supranational policy. Brexit and the increasing importance of the external policy dimension underpin the role of the EU institutions. However, the Council has preserved the exclusive prerogative to set quantitative limits on catches, which prevents the complete communitarization of the policy. In this way, growing politization overlaps with the ever-increasing technical complexity of the CFP. The former stems from the European Parliament activism and the supranational demand for expertise from the industry and expert community. As a result, the Commission empowers subnational actors in order to gain an advantage vis-à-vis national authorities that pursue their own interests over the community ones. Also, the article reveals the functional spillover in action, especially as a result of supranational effort to reach sustainable catches, namely multiannual plans, landing obligation. It requires new policy instruments along with general oversight by the Commission.

Jurisdiction over Transnational Quantum Networks

The international quantum communication networks develop; governance and legal jurisdiction remain unclear due to jurisdictional gaps in existing legal frameworks. Analysis of applicable accords, state practice, court judgments and domestic law related to digital infrastructure reveals minimal current governance explicitly addressing jurisdiction over global quantum systems. Results indicate specialized multilateral treaties are necessary to establish acceptable jurisdiction given quantum computing's novel abilities allowing exponentially scalable computing, cryptographically secured data transfers and precision metrology. Centralized supranational authority and distributed governance models reflect policy trade-offs for advancing global networks. Like historical technologies such as aviation and the Internet requiring years of legal development to mature, progressing quantum networks need focused creation of an internationally harmonized legal framework to balance security, sovereignty and innovation across a landscape holding tremendous transformative potential.

Analysis of the regional integration theory on the example of the EAEU

The article is dedicated to the analysis of liberal intergovernmentalism by Andrew Moravcsik. It is applied to study integration communities all around the world and is relevant for examining the EAEU. A.Moravcsik distinguishes three stages of the integration process: formation of national preferences (priorities), intergovernmental bargaining and realisation of its commitments at the institutional level. At the third stage institutions are endowed with supranational authority, which becomes possible through pooling or delegation of sovereignties. Applying this model, the author describes the reasons for making the Eurasian choice. They include the common need to develop transnational cooperation, enlarge the market for local producers and protect it from third parties, present the Union as an independent actor of international relations. The author gives examples of cases of the negotiation process around signing the Treaty on the EAEU and demonstrates issue-linkages based on asymmetrical interdependence within the Union. The study analyses the institutional implementation of interstate agreements and activities of the Eurasian Economic Commission, which is the supranational body of the EAEU. The Commission regulates different aspects of integration processes in the common markets for goods, services, capital and labor. The article proves that liberal intergovernmentalism is applicable to the case of Eurasian integration.

Corporate criminals in a market context: enforcement and optimal sanctions

By combining approaches from the economic theory of crime and of industrial organization, this paper analyzes optimal enforcement for three different forms of corporate misconduct that harm competition. The analysis shows why corporate crime is more harmful in large markets, why governments have a disinclination to sanction firms whose crime materializes abroad, and why leniency for those who self-report their crime is a complement, and not a substitute, to independent investigation and enforcement. As public authorities rely increasingly on self-reporting by companies to detect cartels, the number of leniency applications is likely to decline, and this is borne out by data. Upon a review of 50 cases of corporate liability from five European countries, competition law enforcement, governed by a unified legal regime, is more efficient than enforcement in bribery and money laundering cases, governed by disparate criminal law regimes. Sanction predictability and transparency are higher when governments cooperate closely with each other in law enforcement, when there are elements of supra-national authority, and when the offense is regulated by a separate legal instrument. Given our results, Europe would benefit from stronger supra-national cooperation in regulation and enforcement of transnational corporate crime, especially for the sake of deterrent penalties against crime committed abroad.

Supranationality as an important characteristic of European Union law

Introduction. This paper examines the problem of formation and activity of the supranational authority of international organizations. It is noted that the need for such a study is due to the strengthening of European integration and the desire of the European Union (EU) leadership to unite member states to ensure stability in the European region. In such conditions, member states have a desire to preserve their sovereign identity and make maximum use of global mechanisms to achieve their goals and further development, without transferring authority to the supranational level. The purpose of the paper is the analysis of supranationality as an important characteristic of the legal nature of the EU, the determination of its main features through the analysis of the functioning of the institutional system of unification, the division of competences between the EU and the member states, and the disclosure of the principles on which the EU legal system is built. Results. The paper is devoted to supranationality as an important characteristic of the law of the European Union. It emphasizes the uniqueness of EU law, the norms of which regulate social relations related to the development of integration processes within the EU. The importance of the issue of supranationality of EU law and the need for its further research have been proven. Various views on the concept of supranationality are described and its consideration through the prism of features is proposed. The implementation of supranational characteristics of EU law through the activities of EU institutions is pointed out. Attention is focused on the principle of the rule of law and its role in ensuring unity and stability in the EU legal system, the reliability of legal decisions made. In addition, it is proposed to consider supranationality through the division of competences into three types: exclusive, joint and auxiliary. The authors determined where exactly nationality is manifested the most. It has been proven that the direct effect of norms plays an important role in ensuring nationality. It is noted that this principle establishes the most beneficial interaction of the national law of the member states with supranational law for the achievement of EU goals. Conclusion. The paper states that the delegation of powers to supranational bodies of the Union does not threaten the state sovereignty of the participating countries, and the elements of supranationality are aimed at achieving the goals of the EU. The decision to increase or decrease the degree of supranationality is decided only by the member states themselves, depending on whether further development of European integration is necessary. Therefore, supranationality in the EU has a contractual basis and can be considered as one of the ways of cooperation of sovereign states in the integration process.

Social Workers and Irregular Migrants in the Assistance Circuit: Making Sense of Paradoxical Inclusion

Despite restrictive policy frameworks, cities sometimes provide support to irregular migrants. Scholars have analysed these forms of inclusion, focusing on policies and tensions between inclusionary approaches by local or urban actors and exclusionary approaches by national or supranational authorities. This article seeks to shift the focus to the street level, examining how support is delivered, how it is experienced by different categories of irregular migrants, and how frontline social workers make sense of their work and foster “paradoxical inclusion.” To this end, the article first analyses the experiences of young North African irregular migrants in Geneva, Switzerland. Based on ethnographic research, we describe their everyday life in the “assistance circuit,” which forces them to follow a daily routine determined by the services offered at fixed times in different places. Over time, the young men develop a sense of entrapment and alienation, as well as escape strategies. Secondly, by examining the perspective of social workers, we show that the constraints associated with the assistance circuit reflect a social work paradigm that aims to keep people on the move, limit dependency and promote autonomy. This paradigm coexists with another, conflicting one, which can be described as palliative, but which also seems paradoxical to the irregular migrants who aspire to full participation in social and economic life. Overall, our study suggests an alternative interpretation of the limitations and paradoxes surrounding irregular migrants’ inclusion that complements policy‐oriented approaches.

The European Vector of Italy’s Foreign Policy

The foreign policy of the Italian Republic is implemented in three key areas: European, Atlantic and Mediterranean. This article examines the European vector of Italian politics, the characteristic features of this direction and its evolution in the XX–XXI centuries. The Italian Republic has played a significant role in the process of European integration, taking an active part in all key initiatives of this process since the 1960s. In the second half of the XX — early XXI centuries european policy has become a tool for Italy to strengthen its own status in the international arena, and an active position in the integration processes is a way to stand on a par with the leaders of the European space. It is Europeanism, along with Atlanticism, that became the basis of the foreign policy concept of Italy in the second half of the XX century and determines the political image of the country and its position in the international arena. In this context, it is especially important that the foreign policy dimension of Italian politics is closely linked to the domestic political situation in the country. At the beginning of the XXI century, there are outbursts of euroscepticism in the country associated with the problem of migration and dissatisfaction with supranational authorities in times of crisis, such as COVID-19. Europeanism, however, remains a key dimension of the country’s foreign policy.

ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКИЙ СКЕПТИЦИЗМ І ПОПУЛІЗМ ЗА УМОВ ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЇ ПРОЦЕСУ ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОЇ ІНТЕГРАЦІЇ

The article examines the influence of the ideology and political practice of right-wing populism on European skepticism. The objective reasons for the development of European skepticism and right-wing populism are due to contradictions between national and supranational authorities. The beginning of the 21st century was marked by an acute global economic crisis, which stimulated the activation of various populist movements that take advantage of the favorable conditions of the ambivalence of many traditional political ideologies, the blurring of the demarcation lines between the «center-right» and «center-left», and the decline of classic mass political parties. A polarized political culture is quickly turning into a breeding ground for populists. The driving force of left populism was the «old left»: socialists, anarchists, Trotskyists, who entered into an alliance with protectionist trade unions. The second ideological stream consists of those who protest against the rapid disappearance of the old world and the strengthening of global competition. Anti-American sentiments are popular among left and right populism in Europe. The process of European integration in its crisis points of development gives rise to various inversion tendencies, which are aimed at opposing the formation of a more cohesive European Union as an effective model of post-national democracy. The prospects of populist left and right parties in the EU member states depend on their ability to effectively balance different social interests, offering «simple» solutions to complex systemic problems. The price of election campaigns (Internet advertising) has increased. Big sponsors allocate money to politicians to achieve their specific goals and therefore look for exactly such candidates who will push such goals. The struggle for political earnings drains time, resources and enthusiasm. As a result, citizens as a whole are polarized and become politically uncompromising. In this way, populists simply fulfill the wishes of their voters. Populism is also facilitated by the new information environment. Social media offers post truth and a variety of highly specialized topics and points of view. People get locked into their info menu. Virtual reality is killing real democracy. Social capital as a network of public institutions, the norms of reciprocity and trust that arise from them, is declining.

Основные модели глобальной демократии: теоретический анализ

The purpose of the article is to consider possible democratic forms of solving global problems: unilateral actions of democratic states, making interstate alliances and treaties, development of global civil society, establishing supranational (global) democratic public power. Fundamental weaknesses inherent in each of these forms are analyzed. In particular, it is argued that since globalization poses a threat to national democracies, a democratic solution to global problems involves going beyond the national level. At the same time, interstate cooperation also has a fundamentally undemocratic character, since neither the content of treaties, nor the inequality of negotiating opportunities at their conclusion, are under the control of any supranational authority. Similarly, the fundamentally undemocratic nature of global civil society is demonstrated, which many authors rely on when developing concepts of transnational democracy. The fundamental possibility of building a global democracy in the form of a supranational public authority is defended. As an example, the model of the world republic by Otfried Höffe is considered. Attention is focused on the need to develop cosmopolitan (global) virtues and identity, without which any attempt to have a democratic solution to global problems is doomed to failure. It is argued that on the theoretical level, cosmopolitan identity as such and the virtues associated with it are not opposed to national and local identities. It is concluded that in terms of the democratic ideal, the fundamental difficulties that each of the considered models of solving global problems may face show the need to develop an integrative model of global democracy.

Explaining the failure of global health governance during COVID-19

Abstract Global health governance (GHG) was one of COVID-19's earliest victims. Soon after the novel coronavirus escaped China, the World Health Organization (WHO) was marginalized, and the International Health Regulations became practically irrelevant, as nations adopted uncoordinated, ad hoc responses. Existing explanations of GHG's collapse are largely utopian, criticizing states for failing to empower the WHO with sufficient supranational authority. This misunderstands how GHG was supposed to work in the first place and hence mistakenly diagnoses the causes of failure. We argue that COVID-19 exposed the pathologies of an entire, neoliberal approach to global governance: metagovernance and state transformation. In this approach, international organizations are hollowed out and their role shifts to metagovernance—developing and disseminating ‘best practice’ policies, institutions and rules for states to embed domestically. Such global regimes' efficacy, therefore, depends on states' capacity to enforce global disciplines. However, nation-states are also hollowed out by neoliberal strictures, undermining practical implementation. Consequently, GHG was failing long before COVID-19, leaving the system dependent on ad hoc interventions by dominant states. With the latter also affected by COVID-19, GHG was left in disarray. Reform proposals should therefore focus less on global institutions and rules and more on building domestic capabilities.

Worldmaking from the margins: interactions between domestic and international ordering in mid-20th-century India

This article investigates the contribution of decolonising states to the nascent international order emerging after the end of World War II. More precisely, it investigates the Indian contribution to the emerging international human rights regime, focussing on two key contributions: the advocacy for a strong supranational authority endowed with substantial enforcement mechanisms for the realisation of human rights and the equally strong defence of a bifurcation of civil-political and socio-economic rights into two treaties. Both contributions have been largely ignored within International Relations – and where they have been acknowledged, they have been subsumed into either narratives of liberal progress (as in the case of human rights enforcement) or Cold War rivalry (as in the case of a separation of the two Human Rights Covenants). In contrast, this paper seeks to shed light on the agency of Indian diplomats and politicians. It shows how their positions were neither simply replications of pre-existing scripts nor bare executions of superpower preferences. Instead, they were responses to the challenges of becoming a post-colonial state in a still overwhelmingly imperial world. Two challenges stood out: the definition of citizenship in light of internal diversity and a widely dispersed diaspora and the challenge of development against the backdrop of highly unequal global economic relations. In this article, I trace the movement of key protagonists between the Constituent Assembly and the United Nations to show how they were engaged in a project of postcolonial worldmaking, which required the simultaneous transformation of domestic and international order.

Emergence of Islamic Finance Organizations, 1948 – 2016

In this paper, I show two mechanisms of the emergence of non-Western organizations: demonstration of contracts and cultural resurgence. For illustration, I use the case of Islamic finance, an alternative economic organization for Muslims who are about 24% of the world population. With additional transaction costs and illegitimacy concerns, Islamic finance contracts do not usually take a formal form. However, my analyses with duration models, regressions, and semi- natural experiments over 1948 - 2016 and in 186 countries suggest that the Islamic finance contracts between national and supranational authorities inspired confidence among entrepreneurs and stakeholders that Islamic finance is socially and economically appropriate. This gave rise to Islamic finance organizations to enact such contracts, reducing the transaction costs for realizing Islamic principles in financial transactions. Also, Islamic finance organizations grew earlier in countries with aspirations for Muslim cultural resurgence in the post British colonial times.

The Principles of Sustainability in Economics and the War in Europe

Can we talk about “community hegemony” when we talk about choosing or removing a government leadership as in the case of Russian dictatorship and of tragic and terrible war in Ukraine? The Russian people, literally bombarded with fake news and manipulations of reality about war (directly coming from the old Soviet “dezinformatzija" дезинформация), may seem completely bewitched by censorship. Nevertheless, we must believe that the responsibilities always entrusted to the community in terms of life and choice freedom can never be completely extinguished. As saying that the longing for the freedoms guaranteed by democracy has been part of the DNA of Earth peoples starting from birth. For this reason, the possibility of removing the dictatorship in Russia lies with the community, although the conditions are not yet favorable for a democratic power alternation in Russia. Therefore, this is the real final goal that the Western countries must set, by continuing to support the defense of brave Ukrainian people by providing money and weapons. All the more true if we believe that the final goal of humankind is to ban the war and above all to dismiss even just the simple eventuality of an atomic war; which would only bring the destruction of life on Earth, This is in contrast to the goal that all living beings have in concert with nature, that is, the preservation of life on Earth. In my opinion, it’s therefore necessary that the great democracies take the common decision to remove the atomic arsenals from the control of leaders of those countries in possession of nuclear weapons and then entrust the whole nuclear arsenal to a global supranational authority, that would keep the atomic weapons in a “new Fort Knox” and later would dispose for their progressive reuse, but for peace purposes.

Common Fisheries Policy of the EU through the Lens of Multi-Level Governance Framework

The fishery sector has a unique position within the European Union regulatory system. Being in the joint competence of supranational and national authorities, it has a complex transnational nature, characterized by an active participation of non-governmental organizations and associations, as well as a number of coordinating international authorities. Additionally, the fishery is of particular importance for nation states since it is linked to issues of sovereignty and social stability. The paper examines possible applications of the multi-level governance (MLG) theory to the study of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), its history, current state and prospects for development. The first section outlines the key provisions of the MLG theory and describes its general applicability to the study of the EU institutions. In order to provide a better understanding of strengths and weaknesses of the MLG theory, the author compares it to a number of related approaches traditionally used in integration studies in general and the European integration studies in particular. The author concludes that the multi-level governance framework is particularly suitable to the study of complex regulatory processes that involve different actors, like in the case of the EU CFP. Such an approach allows the author to identify certain specifics of the EU political practices in this area of regulation. For example, the author highlights a clear desire of the supranational bodies to acquire additional competences and to bring about redistribution of power in their favor through mobilizing the support of sub-national actors and think-tanks and at the expense of national actors. However, the author concludes that in order to provide a truly comprehensive understanding of the EU CFP, the traditional focus of the MLG approach should be expanded to encompass yet another level of analysis — the global one.

Supranational authorities and private actors as drivers of single market integration? The state of the Union in electricity and banking

ABSTRACT The creation of a European Banking Union and a European Energy Union have been two high-profile integration projects in a decade characterised by multiple crises. While recent research has focused on the direct effects of crisis on European integration dynamics, less attention has been paid to policy outcomes of market integration in sectors such as banking and energy. To address this gap, the study examines how distinct paths of integration, and the types of institutional change they involve, translate into patterns of sectoral governance. Further, it analyses the consequences of diverging patterns of sectoral governance for policy outcomes, examining whether the existence of supranational coordination bodies and public–private interaction is conducive to market integration. The findings from the analysis of the banking and electricity sectors suggest that while we see resilience and renewed integration in institutional terms, the change affecting policy outcomes appears to be more limited.

The Eu Indo-Pacific Strategy and the China-Russia relations

The China-Russia relations are facing a changing external environment, including the Indo- Pacific. This article focuses on the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy, which is a new and little-researched theme. It aims to address a central question: what the implications of the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy on the China-Russia relations are. It focuses on the discourse of the EU’s supranational authorities. The qualitative content analysis of that discourse unveils that the nature of this strategy is to enhance the legitimacy and uniqueness of the EU as a global player. It argues that this strategy has important implications for both China and Russia in direct or indirect ways. One main assumption is that the EU’s impact will be more concentrated in low politics than high politics. This article develops two hypotheses. One is that the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy will enhance the West as external pressure to China and Russia in the region, especially on low political issues. The other is that increasing external pressure from the EU and the West in this region highlights the necessity of cooperation between China and Russia. It concludes that while the implications for China and Russia are different respectively, the EU’s ambition as an exogenous factor will compel China and Russia to uplift their bilateral ties.

Европейский союз и постсоветские страны: новые тенденции в помощи развитию

The article analyzes the policy in the field of international development assistance implemented by the EU in the post-Soviet space. It is shown that in the second half of the 2010s – early 2020s the largest European donor countries perceived this region as peripheral. The main part of the funds was allocated by the supranational authorities of the EU. Geographically, most official development assistance (ODA) was provided to Eastern European countries and the South Caucasus, while development assistance to Central Asia was financed on a residual basis. After the crisis in Ukraine escalated in 2022, the EU’s collective ODA increased sharply, and the country itself became the main recipient of European assistance. However, the bulk of aid is expenditure on refugees in donor countries, which is statistically recorded as ODA. Financing of projects on the territory of Ukraine itself is not so significant. In the context of the degradation of relations between Russia and the West, the EU countries are interested not so much in the reconstruction of the Ukrainian economy, but in using the anti-Russian potential of Ukraine. In this regard, not economic, but military assistance is of paramount importance.