Treaties, Brexit, and the Constitution: Dr Eirik Bjorge submits evidence to parliament

Press release issued: 31 May 2018

Dr Eirik Bjorge recently submitted evidence to the House of Lords Committee, co-written with Arabella Lang (Senior Researcher, House of Commons Library) and Dr Ewan Smith (Shaw Junior Research Fellow, University of Oxford). The submission tackles the foreseeable treaty problems posed by the Brexit process and suggests practicable mechanisms for parliamentary scrutiny.

Titled ‘Treaties, Brexit, and the Constitution’, the submission to the House of Lords Liasison Committee ‘Review of Investigative and Scrutiny Committees’ Inquiry is based on a conference co-organised by Dr Eirik Bjorge, Arabella Lang and Dr Ewan Smith, held on 23 March 2018 at Jesus College, University of Oxford.

During the conference, practitioners, academics, judges, and lawyers from the Houses of Parliament and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office set out to examine UK law on treaties and offer realistic recommendations on constitutional settlement for parliamentarians.

The paper sums up the conclusions of the conference discussions, outlining potential problems that the renegotiating of international treaties upon leaving the EU could present, and evaluating parliamentary sovereignty and Committees’ conceivable future role in scrutinising such treaties.

It includes several case studies, recommendations for enhancing democratic accountability and suggestions for new mechanisms for parliamentary scrutiny, proposing the creation of a new Joint Treaty Committee, with a specialised Treaty Secretariat to “support committees by monitoring, analysing and advising on proposed treaties.”

The submission concludes:

“in our view the most important thing is that Parliament is aware of the treaty issues of Brexit, and seriously considers options for democratic scrutiny of treaties to replace and perhaps expand on those that will be lost with Brexit.”

To read the written evidence ‘Treaties, Brexit and the Constitution’ in full online please click here.

Further information

Dr Eirik Bjorge is Senior Lecturer in Public International Law at the University of Bristol Law School. He has advised States, private entities and individuals on matters of public international law, human rights law, and constitutional law. He has acted as counsel and adviser, and provided expert opinions, in cases before the domestic courts, the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, and tribunals set up under the auspices of ICSID. He has also provided training on matters of international law, human rights law, and constitutional law to domestic judges, and government officials.

For further information about legal news, events and research related to Brexit please visit the Law School’s Brexit Centre website.