The European Union in Global Competition of Jurisdictions

Abstract

International legal regimes are a factor in regulating relationships between subjects of international relations, constructive interaction, policy coordination and resolution of contradictions. When conflicts arise, the interaction of the legal systems of states, regional associations and international organizations can be both complementary and competitive in nature, affecting the legal qualification of the parties’ actions. Competitiveness manifests itself in the interpretation of the actions of the same entities within different jurisdictions. The conflict of interests of the parties, as confirmed by examples from the contractual legal practice of relations between the EU and the USA, Canada and a number of other countries, is quite surmountable. The cluster of contradictions characterizing the current situation on the European continent gives an existential character to the search by all parties for a rational strategy for resolving the crisis. The purpose of international law is to put contradictions into the legal plane in order to avoid escalation of tension in relations between the warring parties. An objective assessment of the positions of the world centers of power and the basic legal principles that guide them in the strategy of global presence requires taking into account the problems that gave rise to the replacement of the previous attitude towards «integration of integrations» by a direct clash of the parties. A critical analysis of the key areas of the EU’s implementation of external competencies, including sanctions (implemented with varying degrees of effectiveness in recent years), is important for understanding the strategy that Brussels is implementing. The current crisis is a serious test of the EU’s resistance to stress, and of the Union’s value system for resilience in unfavorable external conditions. The subject of this paper is the real possibilities of the European Union to offer an alternative to the confrontational scenario.