Category: International law
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Tim Cochrane: The Impact of the CLOUD Act Regime on the UK’s Death Penalty Assurances Policy
This post discusses the impact of the new CLOUD Act international data sharing regime on the UK’s death penalty assurances policy. This regime—named after its enabling US legislation, the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act—is due to come into force in July 2020 following the signing of a bilateral US–UK agreement in October 2019…
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Dominique Gracia and Alexander Horne: Treaty scrutiny -A brave new frontier for Parliament
On Tuesday 17 March, the House of Lords endorsed a report by the Procedure Committee which has the effect of establishing a new Committee tasked with scrutinising international agreements, or treaties, that are negotiated and signed by the UK in 2020. Treaty scrutiny has long been a challenge for the UK Parliament, but it is…
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Oran Doyle: Irish Unification: Processes and Considerations
Editors’ Note: This post is part of an IACL-AIDC Blog Symposium on unification of the island of Ireland. The Symposium is co-hosted by the Constitution Project @ UCC Blog. Selected posts will also be co-hosted by the UKCLA Blog. The full set of posts can be found here. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (GFA)—the agreement between…
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Chris McCorkindale and Aileen McHarg: Constitutional Pathways to a Second Scottish Independence Referendum
The Scottish Government’s Case for a Second Independence Referendum On 19 December 2019 – a week after the Westminster General Election at which the SNP, again, won an overwhelming majority of Scottish seats – the Scottish Government published its long-awaited case for a second independence referendum: Scotland’s Right to Choose: Putting Scotland’s Future in Scotland’s…
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Philip Allott: The Legality of a No-Deal Brexit Could Be Challenged
It may be that there is no such thing as a date of 31 October 2019 for a no-deal UK withdrawal from the EU. On 9 April 2019, according to Le Monde, Michel Barnier, chief negotiator for the European Council in the withdrawal negotiations with the UK, said: ‘The EU will never take a decision…
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Yossi Nehushtan: The Unreasonable Perception of Rationality and Reasonableness in UK Public Law
In the recent case of R (Campaign Against Arms Trade) v Secretary of State for International Trade [2019] (hereinafter CAAT), the Court of Appeal invalidated the UK government’s decision to grant licences for the sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia for possible use in the conflict in Yemen. The court found that the government had…
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Mark Elliott and Stephen Tierney: The House of Lords Constitution Committee Reports on Parliamentary Scrutiny of Treaties
The topic of parliamentary scrutiny of the making of treaties could hardly be more topical, given the role that Parliament is currently playing in relation to the Withdrawal Agreement that the UK Government is seeking to enter into with the European Union. That role arises from section 13 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018…
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Kasey McCall-Smith: The Realities of Being Global: Treaty Law and Brexit
Throughout the two years of Brexit debates following Article 50 notification, the UK Government and Parliament consistently have failed to recognise that even if EU law is no longer applicable after Brexit, the UK is still bound to a broad gamut of rules under international law. Apparently attempting to appease Brexiteers, on 11 March Theresa…
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Jan van Zyl Smit: After Poland’s Attempted Purge of ‘Communist-era’ Judges, Do We Need New International Standards for Post-authoritarian Countries Reforming Their Judiciary? (Part II)
Editors’ note: This is Part II of a two-part contribution. You can read Part I HERE. In Part I of this blog post, I discussed the recent attempt by the Polish government to remove members of the Supreme Court by lowering the retirement age to exclude ‘Communist-era’ judges. Other countries, not only the former Communist…
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Jan van Zyl Smit: After Poland’s Attempted Purge of ‘Communist-era’ Judges, Do We Need New International Standards for Post-authoritarian Countries Reforming Their Judiciary? (Part I)
Editors’ note: This is the first of a two-part contribution, the second part of which will appear on the blog tomorrow. For most of last year, the government of Poland maintained that legislation which effectively dismissed 27 Supreme Court judges (a third of the Court) by lowering the age of retirement was necessary to deal…