05 April 2023
Imposing Brexit onto Northern Ireland’s Post-Conflict Governance Order
The Westphalian state provides for an all-but ubiquitous building block of governance. It stacks neatly into dominant accounts of multi-level governance, with all states being presented as nominal equals on the plain of international law. Where reasons of scale or the needs of diverse societies require, sub-state levels of governance can be introduced into the equation. Multiple states, moreover, can pool aspects of their law and decision making where they see the advantages of so doing, resulting in regional supra-national bodies such as the EU. Continue reading >>
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14 February 2023
Allister and Peeples
The ruling in Allister and Peeples of 8 February 2023 serves as a potent reminder that the UK has yet to fully say goodbye to Brexit. The matter being scrutinised was the Northern Ireland Protocol and questions surrounding its constitutionality within the famously uncodified UK constitution. Critically, the UK Supreme Court appears to have poured cold water on the idea that certain Acts of the UK Parliament have a constitutional character (the constitutional statutes doctrine). It is my suggestion, however, that the doctrine has not entirely been consigned to history. Continue reading >>15 November 2022
The post-Brexit Breakdown of the Rule of Law in the UK
The sad reality is that Brexit has contributed to an emerging breakdown of the Rule of Law in the United Kingdom. The famous slogan: ‘Take Back Control’ left open what a post-Brexit society should become. As a result, of course, what Brexit meant had to be worked out after the referendum, and here is where the tensions with the Rule of Law began in earnest, because ‘taking back control’ became, in effect, the only principle and anything that stood in the way of achieving that result was to be sacrificed, including the Rule of Law. Continue reading >>
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19 July 2022
The Bill of Rights Bill and the damages of UK’s unilateralism
Just a fortnight before the resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the UK Government published its draft Bill of Rights Bill, which seeks to repeal and amend the 1998 Human Rights Act which incorporated the ECHR into UK law (section 1(1) of the Bill). The Bill is an expression of a broader trend emerging in UK policies to unilaterally amend (or even avoid) international law commitments. Continue reading >>17 June 2022
The UK’s anti-legal populism
Calls for UK withdrawal from the ECHR are raised at fairly regular intervals in certain quarters of the Conservative party, but this week various members of the Government, including the Prime Minister. Reason for this was an interim measure by the European Court of Human Rights that stopped a deportation flight to Rwanda. It was entirely predictable that calls for UK withdrawal from the ECHR would resurface. Less predictable for many, are the implications this would hold for the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Continue reading >>15 June 2022
British Bare Necessities
In the latest episode of the Brexit saga, the United Kingdom government has published the Northern Ireland Protocol ('NIP') Bill, by which it seeks to unilaterally disapply large parts of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland to the 2019 Withdrawal Agreement (‘WA’) concluded between the UK and the European Union. The British government has shared a summary of its legal position, seeking to justify the NIP Bill on the basis of the doctrine of necessity. However, this justification seems to be a literal, if unconvincing, attempt to make a virtue of necessity. Continue reading >>29 May 2022
British Cavalier Attitude
On 17 May, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, announced to the House of Commons that the Government would be introducing legislative proposals to supersede the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP). This drastic measure is the culmination of strained negotiations between the UK and the EU to modify the NIP since summer 2021. Stepping outside of the framework of the Withdrawal Agreement to address the claimed problems, the UK challenges the Rule of Law in international relations. Continue reading >>
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29 May 2022
The Never-Ending Struggle Over (Northern) Ireland
Claiming the need to “protect the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in all its dimensions”, the UK government threatens once again to adopt legislation unilaterally changing the Protocol Ireland/Northern Ireland. In legal terms, this would constitute a breach of the Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the UK. But does the Good Friday Agreement indeed exclude divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain or even demand protecting trade from GB to Northern Ireland? Continue reading >>
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03 May 2022