Moskalenko O. Sources of the European Union Law (International Law Analysis).

The thesis is devoted to the complex analysis of the sources of the European Union law. The author offers the set of criteria, which allow unambiguously determining the sources of the European Union law. The system of the sources of the European Union law and the interrelations inside the system are determined. The author denies the traditional division of the sources of the European Union law into "primary" and "secondary" and distinquishes four levels in the system of the sources. The first level contains the establishing treaties, the common principles of the European Union law as well as some most important act usually accepted as "primary law". The second level contains the obligations of the European Union derived from all sources of the international law. The precedents of the Court of the European Communities are placed at the third level. Unlike the decisions of the international courts the precedents of the Court of the European Communities definitely became the sources of law due to the specific place of the Court in the system of the European Union bodies of power. The frame character of the establishing treaties and huge authorities received by the Court were the basis for it being an important law-maker. The fourth level includes all the rest of the sources of the European Union law such as customs, additional conventions between the member-countries concluded to fulfill the aims of the establishing treaties and acts of the European Union bodies of power: regulations and directives. The complex analysis of the separate types of the sources of the European Union law is carried out. The author points out the specific features, typical for the sources of the European Union law and underlines the differences between them and the sources of the international public law. On the basis of the Treaty the tendencies of the development of the system of the European Union law sources were determined. The main tendencies are: strenthening the role of the written law, increase of the level of the law formalization and unification, the urge to decrease the role of the courts in the law-making, and to make the system of the European Union law closer to an inner-state model of legislation.