Opinion: Latest Brexit legal challenge will not be ‘back door’ to Single Market

fpjl2 — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 15:33:47 +0000

̽��ֱ��think-tank British Influence is said to be contemplating a judicial review arguing that the UK remains a contracting party to the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement and so will retain membership of the Single Market even after Brexit.

British Influence suggest that only if the UK notifies its intention to withdraw from the EEA agreement in terms of Article 127 of that agreement would the UK ‘leave’ the Single Market.

“ ̽��ֱ��UK’s obligations under the EEA agreement may not lapse when the UK leaves the EU. But the UK only has limited obligations arising under that agreement. For all aspects relating to customs and compliance with the Single Market rules, it is the EU, not the UK, that exercises rights and duties under the agreement,” says Kenneth Armstrong, Professor of European Law and the Director of the Centre for European Legal Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

“Although the UK is a contracting party to the EEA agreement alongside the EU, it is only a party for those aspects of the agreement that fall within the legal powers of the UK. EU membership means that the legal powers of the UK are limited, especially in respect of customs and Single Market rules which have been taken over from the Member States and are exercised on their behalf by the EU.”

If the litigants were, nonetheless, successful in persuading a court that the UK was entitled to exercise the rights of a contracting party, Professor Armstrong suggests they may not be enforceable against the EU27 but only against the three European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states:

“ ̽��ֱ��agreement is between the EU and the Member States on one side, and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein on the other side. This means that the UK was a contracting party as a Member State and only in relation to the three EFTA states. It would be contrary to the purpose of the agreement for it to regulate relations between the UK and the EU27. It is for the EU treaties alone to regulate that relationship subject to the supervision of the European Court of Justice.”

̽��ֱ��EEA Agreement is an “association agreement” that comprehensively deals with a wide range of issues of cooperation between the EU and EFTA, says Armstrong. It is not limited to the Single Market.

“Because they have such a wide scope, association agreements must be signed not just by the EU as a legal entity but also by its Member States for those areas of the agreement where Member States retain their own sovereign powers. But as regards customs duties and the common rulebook of the Single Market, these powers have been transferred to the EU and are exercised collectively at EU level.

“It is not enough to say that the UK is a ‘contracting party’ and then draw the inference that this gives the UK continuing access to the Single Market. It is only a contracting party for certain purposes and within the legal limits of its powers at the time the agreement was reached. At that time, the UK was an EU Member State and the EU had taken over responsibilities for customs and the Single Market rulebook,” concludes Armstrong.

“I would be very surprised if this litigation changed the political course of Brexit."

̽��ֱ��EEA Agreement was signed by the EU, its Member States and three EFTA states (without Switzerland) on 17 March 1993, and ratified by the UK on 15 November 1993.

Article 127 of the EEA Agreement states:

Each Contracting Party may withdraw from this Agreement provided it gives at least twelve months' notice in writing to the other Contracting Parties.

Immediately after the notification of the intended withdrawal, the other Contracting Parties shall convene a diplomatic conference in order to envisage the necessary modifications to bring to the Agreement.

Failure to invoke Article 127 of the EEA Agreement will not keep the UK in a Single Market by the back door after Brexit. ̽��ֱ��UK is only a contracting party to that agreement for limited purposes, says Cambridge professor of European Law.

It would be contrary to the purpose of the agreement for it to regulate relations between the UK and the EU27

Kenneth Armstrong

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Africa: the coming revolution

sjr81 — Wed, 21 May 2014 08:38:57 +0000

Professor Keith Hart, a former Director of Cambridge’s Centre of African Studies, returns to the university tomorrow (Thursday) to deliver the annual Audrey Richards lecture – a showpiece of the Centre’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Hart will use the lecture to contend that conflict, poverty and extremism on the African continent should not divert attention from the long-standing strengths of the informal economy in Africa’s cities and the continent’s new embrace of the digital revolution in communications. Professor Hart will show how such social dynamics may have surprising lessons to give to the troubled market economy in the 21st century.

“In the present decade, seven out of the ten fastest-growing economies are African,” said Hart. “It was never the case that a national framework for development made sense in Africa and it makes even less sense today. ̽��ֱ��coming African revolution could leapfrog many of the obstacles in its path, but it will not do so by remaining tied to the national straitjacket worn by African societies since they won independence from colonial rule.

“ ̽��ֱ��world economy is precarious in the extreme, but Africans have less to lose. Africa’s advantage in the current crisis is its weak attachment to the status quo.”

During the lecture, Hart will also consider the role played by free trade and protection in the revolutions that made modern France, the United States, Italy and Germany, as well as examining the organization of international trade in Southern Africa and reviewing the prospect for greater integration of trade regimes on the continent as a whole.

Professor Hart’s original research in Ghana in the 1970s is renowned for coining the notion of the informal economy. It has been widely applied to account for economic activities that are not recorded by conventional measurements such as the gross domestic product. He has more recently published influential studies on how new forms of money may entail more emancipatory possibilities than has been the case in capitalism’s historical forms.

Professor Hart is currently the co-director of the Human Economy Programme in Pretoria ̽��ֱ�� and Centennial Professor of Economic Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His lecture is given as the Audrey Richards Annual Lecture in African Studies. It pays tribute to Richards (1889-1984), a Cambridge social anthropologist, who founded the Centre of African Studies in 1965.

Hart’s lecture today inaugurates the Centre’s 50th anniversary events that will highlight half a century of excellence in African Studies at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ��’s new Africa initiative builds on this legacy of African Studies.

̽��ֱ��lecture, Waiting for Emancipation: ̽��ֱ��Prospects for Liberal Revolution and a Human Economy in Africa, takes place in room SG1 & SG2 in the Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, at 5pm Thursday. All are welcome to attend.

Africa’s fastest-growing economies could offer a radical alternative to the West’s current reliance on national capitalism according to an academic who helped coin the term the ‘informal economy’.

̽��ֱ��world economy is precarious in the extreme, but Africans have less to lose.

Keith Hart

Globe by Hans Olofsson

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Opinion: Latest Brexit legal challenge will not be ‘back door’ to Single Market

Africa: the coming revolution