ABSTRACT
The influence that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and its preliminary rulings exert on the process of European integration is a widely discussed topic in the academic literature (i.e., Alter 1998, Burley and Mattli 1993, Fligstein and Stone Sweet 2002, Garrett et al. 1998, Mattli and Slaughter 1998, Stone Sweet 2004). In this discussion, most scholars seem to agree that the establishment of the doctrines of direct effect and supremacy of European Union (EU) law in the 1960s, as well as of the mutual recognition principle in the 1970s, had at least a catalysing effect on the integration process during the dark ages of ‘Eurosclerosis’, when supranational lawmaking was hampered by de facto unanimity voting in the Council (Fligstein and Stone Sweet 2001). In contrast to the European case, the influences of dispute settlement mechanisms on regional integration projects outside of Europe are much less discussed. There are some sporadic articles that analyse the legalisation of regional integration projects other than the EU (Abbott 2000, Kahler 2000, McCall Smith 2000), but they do not systematically discuss the influence of this legalisation on the processes of regional integration on other continents.
