Aleksei Petrenko spoke about the significance of systemic integration in international law for the development of EAEU law
Senior Researcher of the International and Comparative Law Research Center, Aleksei Petrenko, spoke at the VIII International Conference of the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union, held in Minsk on 20–21 November 2025. The conference focused on ensuring the rule of law within the EAEU. Its participants and speakers included representatives of the highest judicial bodies of the EAEU member states and international courts, the Eurasian Economic Commission, executive authorities of the member states, as well as scholars and practitioners.
Aleksei talked about systemic integration in international law as one of the tools for interpreting and developing the law of the Union. His remarks were prompted by the recent EAEU Court’s advisory opinion in the aircraft case, in which the Court examined the relationship between two areas of international law: EAEU law and international air law, particularly as expressed in bilateral air service agreements. This is not an isolated instance where the Union’s Court has referred in its work to sources of international law that do not form part of EAEU law. This trend demonstrates the need to develop approaches to such interaction. According to Aleksei, systemic integration may become an important element of these approaches. Applying it would require taking into account such external sources when interpreting EAEU law. This, in turn, would help avoid conflicts and ensure a more convincing determination of its content, with the required level of deference to the international law obligations outside the Union that were consented to by its member states.
The respective conference paper will be published in the forthcoming conference volume.
Participation of the Center’s representative in the annual conference of the EAEU Court continues our work in the area of Eurasian integration. At last year’s conference, Aleksei made proposals to development of the EAEU Court’s competence based on the research conducted by the Center. The proposals in the form of the conference paper are available online (in Russian) and in our Library.
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Areas of professional expertise: Education In 2013, Aleksei graduated from the IKBFU (Kaliningrad). In 2015, he obtained an LL.M. degree with a specialization in international law from the University of Göttingen (Germany). He also completed an exchange semester at the University of Kiel (Germany). In 2024, the degree of Doctor of Law (Dr. jur.) was awarded following the defence of the dissertation at the University of Göttingen. The dissertation was written in the field of international law and concerned the right to regulate in investment and trade law. In 2016, Aleksei received the “International Law in the 21st Century” Award from the ICLRC. The previous year, the Society of International Economic Law highly commended his paper on WTO law in an essay competition on international economic law. Professional Experience From 2016 to 2017, Aleksei worked as a research assistant at the Institute of International and European Law at the University of Göttingen. Later, Aleksei joined the WTO Expertise Center in Moscow, where he handled inter-State trade disputes from 2017 to 2019. He was a member of the litigation team that achieved the first win in a WTO dispute initiated by Russia. Aleksei participated in over ten inter-State disputes, including panel and Appellate Body proceedings, representing complainants, respondents and third parties. He also took part in WTO committee meetings and conducted practical seminars on trade law for representatives of government agencies and large businesses. Aleksei has developed and taught law courses at three universities in both Russian and English. In 2022, he joined the School of International Law at the Faculty of Law of the Higher School of Economics (Moscow), as an Associate Professor, where he teaches subjects related to public international law. In 2024, Aleksei coached the winning team in the moot court competition «Dispute Settlement in the Eurasian Economic Union.» He also received a certificate of appreciation from the School of International Law (HSE University). Before joining the ICLRC, Aleksei worked with the Center as an expert, and in 2020, he officially became part of the team, focusing on issues linked to public international law.
Author of the monograph: Petrenko, Aleksei. The Right to Regulate in International Economic Law: Towards a General Theory with Lessons from the GATS / A. Petrenko. - Göttingen : Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2024. - 227 p.