Grew out of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) and the European Economic Community, created by the Treaty of Rome (1957). The Maastricht Treaty (1992) created the EU itself; the Lisbon Treaty (2007) reformed it. 27 members after the UK left in 2020. The only deeply supranational bloc on the grid - the case the agree side of every sovereignty question is really about.
From the Treaty of Rome (1957) onwards the EU climbed the whole integration ladder: free trade, customs union, single market with free movement of goods, services, capital and people, then monetary union with the euro. No other bloc on the grid has gone past the customs union stage.
The Maastricht Treaty (1992) created the EU itself, and the Lisbon Treaty (2007) reformed the machinery: a directly elected Parliament, the Commission, the Council and a court. The AU copied the model; everyone else built far less or nothing at all.
This is the only plus in the whole Supranational column: a member state can be bound against its wishes by a court ruling it must follow or a majority vote it loses. That single plus IS the answer to whether regional organisations have eroded sovereignty - erosion depends entirely on which bloc you mean.
EU membership carries real costs: binding court rulings, majority voting, a common trade policy. The key concept is pooled sovereignty - members give up some independent control in exchange for a share of collective control, so the sovereignty is redeployed, not destroyed.
Defence sits at the core of state sovereignty, and even EU members will not hand it to the bloc: hard security stays with national governments and NATO, and foreign policy decisions require unanimity. Security is where integration stops, even for the deepest bloc on the grid.
Small EU states sit inside the world's largest single market and negotiate with the US and China as part of one bloc. This is the disagree side of the sovereignty argument: pooling sovereignty can increase a state's effective power, which is why states keep joining.
For the 2022 impact question, the regional v global judgement grid sets this depth against the worldwide reach of the IMF, World Bank and WTO.
Judged on its own aims the EU has delivered its two biggest: the single market exists, and the members have stayed at peace with each other since the project began with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951. The UK's exit in 2020 is the qualifier - integration this deep can still be reversed by a member that wants out.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA in 2020. The spec names it as NAFTA, now USMCA. Mainly an economic organisation: a free trade agreement, not a political project. Its notable feature is the sunset clause, which keeps it under periodic review by all three nations. On the grid it is the EU's opposite - one plus column, everything else minus.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaced NAFTA in 2020 and keeps trade across North America tariff-free. On the integration ladder it sits firmly at the bottom rung - a free trade area, with no common external tariff and no single market.
USMCA deliberately built nothing: no parliament, no commission, no standing court. The contrast with the EU's full institutional set is the sharpest on the grid, and it is a design choice - the three members wanted a trade deal, not an organisation.
The agreement's notable feature is the sunset clause: it must be reviewed periodically by all three nations, which keeps everything in member hands rather than building permanent authority above them. Nothing in USMCA can bind a member against its wishes.
Membership costs the US, Mexico and Canada almost no freedom of action: no binding court, no majority voting, no common external policy. In any essay on whether regional organisations erode sovereignty, USMCA is the cleanest case for the disagree side.
USMCA is a mainly economic organisation with no defence or security dimension at all. It is the mirror image of the SCO, which is security-first and economics-last - the two together show how differently regionalism can be built.
The United States hardly needs a bloc to be heard, and USMCA gives Mexico and Canada no collective platform: each member conducts its own foreign and trade diplomacy. Compare Mercosur, which negotiated with the EU as a single bloc, or ASEAN's collective weight with the powers around it.
Judged by its own aims rather than the EU's, USMCA succeeds: it promised tariff-free trade across North America and delivers it. This is the column's lesson - the EU-standard trap makes modest organisations look like failures when they are doing exactly the narrow job their members gave them.
Launched in 2002, replacing the Organisation of African Unity, and modelled in part on the EU. Its motto is "A united and strong Africa". Shared institutions (the Assembly, the Commission, a Pan-African Parliament), the African Continental Free Trade Area, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and a peacekeeping role through the African Standby Force. The essay phrase is broad but shallow.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is one of the most ambitious trade projects anywhere - a free trade area across 55 member states. The plus is qualified: it is still being implemented, so the ambition currently outruns the delivery.
Launched in 2002 to replace the Organisation of African Unity, the AU copied the EU's institutional design: an Assembly, a Commission and a Pan-African Parliament, plus the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. The bodies exist - the question is how much power flows through them.
The AU borrowed the EU's architecture without the EU's authority: its institutions advise and coordinate, but no AU body can bind a member state against its wishes. The grid's lesson is that institutions alone do not make a bloc supranational - binding power does.
AU membership asks little of its 55 members: few binding constraints, no court rulings a state must follow, no majority votes a state can lose. For the sovereignty-erosion question, the AU joins USMCA, ASEAN, the Arab League and the SCO on the disagree side.
The AU runs real peacekeeping: the African Standby Force and missions such as AMISOM in Somalia. Alongside the SCO it is one of only two organisations on the grid with a genuine security role - though its resources are stretched thin against the scale of the tasks.
An organisation of 55 states carries real weight in world politics when it speaks with one voice - the AU's motto is "A united and strong Africa". The qualifier is in the note: agreement across 55 governments is rare, so the potential voice is louder than the actual one.
The essay phrase for the AU is broad but shallow: it reaches into every measure on the grid - trade, institutions, security, rights - but lightly. The organisations that fall short of their own aims are the ambitious ones, and the AU's founding ambitions were the broadest of all.
The comparison that measures the gap: on finance and development, the global lenders still set the terms for most AU members - the AfCFTA exists partly as a counterweight to that dependence.
Founded in 1945 to draw closer the relations between Arab states and safeguard their independence and sovereignty. 22 members across North Africa and the Middle East. The loosest of the named five: limited free trade, minimal shared institutions beyond its Council, and mainly political and diplomatic action. On the grid it is the all-minus row - useful in essays as the case that regionalism can mean almost nothing.
Eight decades after its founding in 1945, the Arab League's economic integration amounts to efforts towards the Greater Arab Free Trade Area and little more. It barely starts the integration ladder the EU climbed to the top of.
The League has built almost nothing institutional in eighty years: a Council and little else. No parliament, no commission, no court - the loosest institutional set of the five organisations named on the spec.
The Arab League is a forum of governments and nothing above them: no body can bind a member, no vote can be lost, no ruling must be followed. It sits at the intergovernmental extreme of the grid, alongside USMCA and the SCO.
Protecting sovereignty is in the founding purpose: the League was created in 1945 to draw closer the relations between Arab states AND safeguard their independence and sovereignty. An organisation built to protect sovereignty cannot sensibly be accused of eroding it.
The League's action is mainly political and diplomatic rather than integrative, and joint security action is occasional at best. Compare the AU's standing peacekeeping machinery or the SCO's joint exercises - the League has built neither.
Twenty-two members across North Africa and the Middle East could carry serious collective weight, but the League rarely agrees on the region's big questions. The contrast with ASEAN is instructive: ten members with light institutions still manage a collective negotiating voice; twenty-two with a Council do not.
The League is the all-minus row of the grid, and its essay use is exactly that: proof that regionalism can mean almost nothing. The integration its founding rhetoric implied was never seriously attempted, so even on the fair test - its own aims - the delivery is thin.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, founded in 1967, with 10 members. Economically integrated through the ASEAN Free Trade Area, but politically deliberately loose. The ASEAN Way is the key term: consensus rather than majority voting, non-interference in members' internal affairs, informality, gradualism and mutual respect. In essays ASEAN is the proof that shallow integration can be exactly what members want.
Founded in 1967, ASEAN built real economic integration through the ASEAN Free Trade Area across its ten members. On the integration ladder it sits at the free trade rung - the same level as USMCA, well below the EU and Mercosur.
ASEAN's institutional lightness is a choice, not a failure to develop: decisions by consensus, informality and gradualism are written into its working culture. The grid's point is that ASEAN looks at the EU's institutional set and deliberately built the opposite.
The ASEAN Way is the key exam term: consensus rather than majority voting, non-interference in members' internal affairs, informality, gradualism and mutual respect. No member can ever be bound against its will - which is exactly how the ten members want it.
Non-interference and consensus mean ASEAN membership costs almost nothing in freedom of action. In the sovereignty-erosion essay, ASEAN is the proof that a regional organisation can deliver real trade integration while leaving sovereignty untouched.
ASEAN offers dialogue, not defence: there is no collective security guarantee and no standing force. Defence sits at the core of state sovereignty, and the ASEAN Way's non-interference principle rules out anything stronger by design.
ASEAN's ten members negotiate together with the powers around them - China, the US and the EU - and carry far more weight collectively than any one would alone. This is the strongest answer to why states join at all: pooling effort can increase effective power without surrendering sovereignty.
Judged by its own aims, ASEAN is a clear success: real trade integration through the ASEAN Free Trade Area, with the political integration its members never wanted firmly avoided. In essays ASEAN is the proof that shallow integration can be exactly what members want - a choice, not a failure.
The Southern Common Market, founded by the Treaty of Asuncion (1991). Founding members: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela joined in 2012 but has been suspended since 2016. A customs union with a common external tariff and real institutions: the Common Market Council, the Common Market Group and the consultative Parliament, Parlasur. Not named in the spec, but the sharpest comparison row: deeper than USMCA, narrower than the EU.
Founded by the Treaty of Asuncion (1991) by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, Mercosur climbed one rung higher than USMCA and ASEAN: a customs union with a common external tariff. On the integration ladder it is second only to the EU.
Mercosur built genuine bodies: the Common Market Council, the executive Common Market Group and the consultative Parliament, Parlasur. Not the EU's full set, but far more than USMCA's nothing - which is why Mercosur is the grid's sharpest comparison row.
Mercosur shows that institutions and supranationalism are different things: the Council, the Group and Parlasur all exist, but no Mercosur body can bind a member against its wishes. The supranational column keeps its single plus - the EU - even against the second-deepest bloc.
The customs union has a real sovereignty price: members give up their independent trade policy to the common external tariff. It is the only plus in the sovereignty column besides the EU - narrow, but enough to complicate any claim that only the EU costs its members anything.
Mercosur was built as the Southern Common Market and stayed economic: no defence dimension, no security machinery. Like USMCA it shows that a trade bloc can deepen economically without ever touching the security core of sovereignty.
Mercosur has negotiated trade agreements as one unit, including with the EU - bloc-to-bloc diplomacy that gives Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay more weight together than apart. It is the South American version of the global-voice argument that runs through the EU and ASEAN rows.
The customs union works and the trade agreements get signed, so the economic core of the Treaty of Asuncion is delivered. The political side stalled: Venezuela joined in 2012 and has been suspended since 2016, the clearest sign that Mercosur's ambitions beyond trade have not held.
Began as the Shanghai Five in 1996 (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan), cooperating on shared borders and security. Uzbekistan joined in 2001, creating the SCO. India and Pakistan later became members. A security and political body - the mirror image of USMCA. In essays the SCO shows regionalism built to protect sovereignty rather than pool it.
The SCO began as the Shanghai Five in 1996, built around shared borders and security, and economics never caught up. It barely registers on the integration ladder - the mirror image of USMCA, which is all economics and no security.
The Shanghai Five of 1996 (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan) became the SCO when Uzbekistan joined in 2001, and India and Pakistan later became members. As a standing forum linking China, Russia and a widening circle of Asian states, the political machinery is real even though it binds nobody.
SCO members do not just lack supranational machinery - they reject the idea on principle. The members agreed that outside interference in sovereign territory, on the pretext of "humanitarian intervention", was unacceptable: a deliberate counterpoint to the Western idea of a Responsibility to Protect.
The SCO is regionalism built to protect sovereignty rather than pool it - the exact opposite of the EU's model. In the sovereignty-erosion essay it is the strongest disagree evidence: here is a regional organisation whose founding purpose is to keep authority with the state.
Security is what the SCO was built for and what it still does: border management, counter-terrorism and joint exercises, dating back to the Shanghai Five's work on shared borders in 1996. It is the exception in a column where regionalism usually stops - because defence sits at the core of sovereignty.
With China, Russia, India and Pakistan among its members, the SCO is a deliberate non-Western pole in world politics - its rejection of "humanitarian intervention" is aimed squarely at the Western-led order. The collective voice is real precisely because it speaks against, not within, that order.
The Shanghai Five set out in 1996 to settle shared borders and build security cooperation, and that is what the SCO delivered. Judged by its own aims rather than the EU's, it belongs with USMCA and ASEAN in the delivered column - modest goals, met.