The EU as a Special Regime: Characterization and Effect

Establishing the European Union which goes back to 1950s and its success in achieving valuable goals puts forward this question that whether those successes can transfer to international legal order. In fact, advent of some regimes gradually in international legal order has led to so-called phenomenon of special or self-contained regimes. One of the best and prominent instances in this regard is the European Union. This regional organization has constituted effective norms and mechanism under which any invocation to general international law is on the wide extent limited. This paper is seeking to draw the characterization of EU legal order itself as a legal system and as a special regime in international law. In this respect, analysis of latter particular effect in the context of general international law will be present.