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The fragmentation of international law has led to the emergence of specialized and (quasi) autonomous legal regimes - the "self-contained regimes" or special regimes. This article aims to investigate the degree to which European Union law could be a potential candidate for a "selfcontained regime" and questions the relationship between this special regime and general international law. The methodological approach consists in providing a critical analysis of the Report on Fragmentation of International Law of the International Law Commission, concluded in 2006 and the ECJ case law in order to identify and explain pro et contra arguments regarding the following assertion: although EU law is not totally decoupled from general principles of international law, the new legal order of the EU has taken a historical turn towards selfcontainedness. Embracing the European legal perspective, this inquiry will advocate a presumption in favor of the self-contained character of the EU legal order, based on the EU sui generis modus operandi, the establishment of its own constitutional legal order, accommodating its own norms, techniques and features of modern law-making within its sphere of application, albeit the possible fallback on general international state responsibility and countermeasures mechanisms in case the mechanisms inherent in the EU system fail.
Keywords: EU law, fragmentation of international law, self-contained regimes.
SETTING THE SCENE
At a time when the European Union is remodelling its institutional and legal architecture, as well as its borders, and redefining its priorities, identity and role in the international arena, this article aims to analyze to what extent the EU legal order constitutes a separate field of law, evolving towards a special legal regime or even a self-contained regime.
An inquiry into the legal nature of the EU implies two perspectives of analysis, depending on the "level-of analysis problem"2: first of all, the analysis through the lens of international lawyers viewpoint and then, the analysis through the lens of EU lawyers perception. In the first case, if we look at the works of Dupuy3, Jan Klabbers4 or Nollkaemper5, we notice that the supremacy of international law prevails over any kind of legal regime and EU is seen as an international organization. However, in the second case, while building their arguments on the sui generis nature of EU and its...