Chapter 2 narrates the historical background, evolution, and context of Eurasian integration. The EAEU has been built upon previous integration entities, and the overview provides a better foundation for understanding EAEU’s legal nature and the institutional structure. It delimits the scope of Eurasian integration through an overview of various understandings of Eurasia and integration. It explains why the narrower conceptualization of Eurasian integration to delimitate as much as possible the boundaries of Eurasian integration by distinguishing stages and entities that led to EAEU-proper is preferred. It further establishes four relevant stages of Eurasian integration, which cover the period from the fall of the Soviet Union to our times and proceeds chronologically, starting with the early attempts to create a customs union in the post-Soviet space to establishing the EAEU itself. As there is no aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the history of Eurasian integration, it focuses primarily on its legal garment. It further provides an overview of the legal nature of the entities the EAEU has been built upon leading to an exploration of a prima facie legal nature of the EAEU.

What is the relationship between the global economy and international law? In this chapter, we examine instruments that reflect the liberalism that has prevailed in international trading relations for the last half-century.  The resulting instruments include the articles of the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement. We also highlight anti-corruption instruments and various non-governmental organizations that also share the goals and processes of international liberalism.   The middle section examines attempts to combat the various and increasingly sophisticated forms of corruption in international business transactions, especially the explosion of difficult-to-combat cyber fraud.  The latter part of the chapter notes a growing trend towards economic nationalist goals, and anti-competitive behavior among state and business elites.