The application of concepts and expressions in the context of regional integration is likely to be done incorrectly if the different experiences that populate this phenomenon are not fully taken into account. Indeed, if the (legal) realities that these concepts and expressions are to describe in such context are not taken into account, we may be presented with unwarranted approximations obscuring distinct identities that may ultimately influence legal solutions applied in that same context. The comparison of the institutional framework and legal order of the European Union and of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa may have the advantage of showing precisely such limitations, particularly for the latter, whose legal literature often use concepts such as community law, supranationality or legal integration, the content of which has been polarized by the paradigmatic integrative experience of the European Union. As will be demonstrated, particularly through the notions of autonomy and cooperation and of hierarchy, the European Union and the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa both being attempts to solve and address fundamental problems felt by the participating States and the peoples within their respective regional contexts represent different and even opposite integrative solutions.