Law in Focus: 'Does the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill breach international law?' - Mark Elliott

On Monday 13 June, the UK Government published the text of the proposed Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. The Northern Ireland Protocol forms part of the Withdrawal Agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. The Protocol creates a special legal position for Northern Ireland in the light of its particular political circumstances, effectively enabling Northern Ireland to remain within the EU’s Single Market for goods. The UK Government argues that it is necessary to ‘fix’ certain practical problems that it perceives in relation to this arrangement, including ‘disruption and diversion of trade and significant costs and bureaucracy for business’. It therefore proposes the enactment of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.

In this video, Professor Mark Elliott considers the extent to which the Bill could be considered to be proposing a breach of international law.

Mark Elliott is Professor of Public Law and Chair of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. From 2015 to 2019, he served as Legal Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, providing advice to the Committee on a range of legislative and other matters. Mark is the author of a widely read blog Public Law for Everyone that is aimed at public law scholars, current and prospective law students, policy-makers, and others who are interested in the subject.

For more information about Professor Elliott, you can refer to his staff profile.

Law in Focus is a series of short videos featuring academics from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, addressing legal issues in current affairs and the news. These issues are examples of the many which challenge researchers and students studying undergraduate and postgraduate law at the Faculty.  Law in Focus is available on YouTube, or to subscribe to in iTunes or other podcast platforms.

Other collections of video and audio recordings from the Faculty of Law are available on the Lectures at Law page.