Interstate Economic Cooperation in Eurasia: Actual Options of Development (International Legal Aspect)

Аннотация

World economic power is becoming increasingly dispersed, a process accompanied by a greater role played by various international economic associations of states in regulating international economic relations. The article devoted to the fragmentation of international law demonstrates this kind of law can be grouped according to uncoordinated regulatory entities and proposes a solution to this issue. The factors in this fragmentation are analyzed through the prism of current processes in Eurasian regional economic integration. The approaches to coordinating the laws of regional economic associations with the regulations of the WTO are also reviewed. The new formats of regional intergovernmental economic cooperation in Eurasia, such as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) are analyzed. The EEU and the SREB are presently the main drivers of the transformation of Eurasia into a zone of joint development. These projects share a common goal and can harmoniously complement each other, and their potential linkage makes possible the formation of a common economic space on the Eurasian continent. The Joint Statement on Cooperation on the Construction of Joint Eurasian Economic Union and Silk Road Projects (signed by Presidents Putin and Li Xin on May 8, 2015) raises some serious issues. The main one concerns the comparison and further development of the EEU and the SREB and possible ways to have them complement each other in practice. At the Astana Club in 2015 three potential options of co-existence of the projects were considered: bilateral connection (meaning that EEU countries would be free to decide on participation in SREB), linkage within an EEU-China format, and linkage within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (the SCO). In this paper the author attempts to identify effective solutions to the problems surrounding this process. The conclusion is effective development of the new integration projects of Russia and China on the basis of the SCO is optimal. A mechanism for international legal regulation of economic cooperation entailing a gradual economic convergence of Eurasia is proposed.