How many people want to deal with people who not only break agreements afterwards, but boast about doing so?
First published in November 2020.
The Internal Market Bill, as it stands, risks UK violating International Law. No matter how many times government claims it provides “legal clarity”, that doesn’t help when it undermines trade, human rights and UK’s place on the international stage, along with the precedent it sets.
International Law trumps domestic law for a purpose. If states decide they can violate laws to which they are a party on an ad hoc basis as they see fit it undermines the purpose of having those laws.
It allows any country to argue the same thing for any law they don’t like.
This obviously has potential for serious negative impacts on the international order. It would potentially mean that any country could violate any International Law and use the UK as an example. Something made a lot easier by other bills passed recently which likely risk violations.
As a direct consequence, we already know that it risks a US/UK deal. Long term other deals may also be placed in jeopardy. After all, how many people want to deal with people who not only break those agreements afterwards, but boast about doing so?
The Internal Market Bill, along with the Overseas Operations Bill and the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill, places UK in a position of demonstrating its contempt for International Laws and other countries who abide by them.
Not a great place to build a post-Brexit future from...🔷
Dan Sohege, Human rights advocate, international refugee law specialist, immigration economist, charity fundraising professional and Director of Stand For All.
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[This piece was first published as a Twitter thread and turned into the above article on 11 November 2020 with the purpose of reaching a larger audience. It has been minorly edited and corrected, and published with the author’s consent. | The author of the tweets writes in a personal capacity.]
