Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: A, University of Lapland, language: English, abstract: Looking at the character of the legal system it can be recognised that there are elements of many different legal systems, for instance state, federation, international organisation. Especially from the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 on there are is a tendence towards a closer unification visible, as the establishment of the European Union and the current debate about a constitution show. The extent to which the examination of the legal character takes place is, due to the length of the essay and the large number of features of the legal system, a brief one, which can naturally not take in account all the possible arguments. It looks at 8 categories, which can give good evidence to solve the question of the legal character of the EU.