Withdrawal Agreement: Attorney General’s legal opinion on the Joint Instrument and Unilateral Declaration — House of Lords, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Keen (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat a Statement made in the other place by my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General: "I would like to make a Statement about my legal opinion on the joint instrument and unilateral declaration concerning the withdrawal agreement published last night Last week, I confirmed I would publish my, "legal opinion on any document that is produced and negotiated with the Union".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/3/19; col. 1112.] This has now been laid before the House. This Statement summarises the instruments and my opinion of their legal effect Last night in Strasbourg, the Prime Minister secured legally binding changes that strengthen and improve the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration. The Government laid three new documents reflecting these changes in the House: a joint legally binding instrument on the withdrawal agreement and the protocol on Northern Ireland; a unilateral declaration by the United Kingdom in relation to the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol; and a joint statement to supplement the political declaration. The legal opinion I have provided to the House today focuses on the first two of these documents, which relate to the functioning of the backstop and the efforts of the parties that will be required to supersede it Let me first tell you what, in my opinion, these documents are not about. They are not about a situation where, despite the parties using good faith and their best endeavours, they cannot reach an agreement on a future relationship. In my opinion such a scenario is, in any case, highly unlikely to occur. It is in the interests of both the United Kingdom and the European Union to agree a future relationship as quickly as possible. Were such a situation to occur, however, the legal risk, as I set it out in my letter of 13 November, remains unchanged Let me now move on to what these documents do achieve. As I set out in my opinion, the joint instrument puts the commitments in the letter from Presidents Tusk and Juncker of 14 January 2019 into a legally binding form and provides, in addition, useful clarifications, amplifications of existing obligations and some new obligations. The joint instrument confirms that the European Union cannot pursue an objective of trying to trap the United Kingdom in the backstop indefinitely. The instrument makes explicit that this would constitute bad faith, which would be the basis of a formal dispute before an arbitrator. This means, ultimately, that the protocol could be suspended if the EU continued to breach its obligations The joint instrument also reflects the United Kingdom’s and European Union’s commitment to work to replace the backstop with alternative arrangements by December 2020, including as set out in the withdrawal agreement. These commitments include establishing, "immediately following the ratification of the Withdrawal Agreement, a negotiating track for replacing the customs and regulatory alignment in goods elements of the Protocol with alternative arrangements" If an agreement has not been concluded within one year of the UK’s withdrawal, efforts must be redoubled. In my view, the provisions of the joint instrument extend beyond mere interpretation of the withdrawal agreement and represent materially new legal obligations and commitments which enhance its existing terms The unilateral declaration records the United Kingdom’s position that, if it were not possible to conclude a subsequent agreement to replace the protocol because of a breach by the European Union of its duty of good faith, it would be entitled to take measures to disapply the provisions of the protocol in accordance with the withdrawal agreement’s dispute resolution procedures and Article 20, to which I have referred There is no doubt, in my view, that the clarifications and amplified obligations contained in the joint statement and the unilateral declaration provide a substantive and binding reinforcement of the legal rights available to the United Kingdom in the event that the European Union were to fail in its duties of good faith and best endeavours I have in this Statement and in the letter I published today set out my view of the legal effect of the new instruments the Government have agreed with the European Union. However, the matters of law affecting withdrawal can only inform what is essentially a political decision that each of us must make. This is a question not of the lawfulness of the Government’s action but of the prudence, as a matter of policy and political judgment, of entering into an international agreement on the terms proposed. I commend this Statement to the House".