What IsSui GenerisAbout the European Union? Costly International Cooperation in a Self-Contained Regime

Abstract

It is widely agreed that the EU is a sui generis international organization, but current scholarship rarely specifies why. This paper identifies the EU as a “self-contained regime”, a treaty institution that imposes costly requirements on its member states but rejects the use of inter-state countermeasure and reciprocity mechanisms. As a self-contained regime, the EU is a puzzle because international relations theory emphasizes the importance of inter-state countermeasures as incentives for states to fulfill costly obligations, as is illustrated by scholarly debates on the politics of both trade and human rights regimes.

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