There has been a lot of talk about how Article XXIV of GATT can provide an alternative to the Withdrawal Agreement. But here’s the deal with Article XXIV of GATT: it is a solution to a problem which is not the problem. Let me try to illustrate this with a story. Imagine a couple –
As Sir Stephen Laws QC, Richard Ekins and I explained in a paper published by Policy Exchange this Friday, the good faith and best endeavours obligations in the Withdrawal Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol (the backstop), in addition to the Joint Instrument agreed at Strasbourg, offer the UK far greater legal comfort than seems to
David Cameron struggles to repatriate powers from Brussels. Yet Britain can reclaim one sovereign power without negotiation. Other EU members never relinquished the right to say ‘non’, ‘nein’, ‘oxi’ to European law that violates the constitution. Should Britain do the same? Italy and Germany’s Constitutional Courts first set constitutional limits to EU law in the
Will the scrapping of the Human Rights Act make Britain a pariah in Europe? When the Human Rights Act was passed in 1998, it was presented as a moment of great liberal modernization that was to take Britain closer to liberal democracies on the continent. Yet, the European experience was quite different. In Germany, France,
