Jasmine Faudone (Dublin City University)
On Thursday 1st December 2022 the DCU Brexit Institute and the Princeton University Center for Human Values and Law held an hybrid event on “Brexit from a Global Perspective: How the UK withdrawal from the EU affected Ireland, Northern Ireland, Europe and Transatlantic Relations”. The event was hosted at Princeton University in the USA, where Prof. Federico Fabbrini, Founding Director of the Brexit Institute, is currently on sabbatical as a Fellow in Law, Ethics and Public Policy.
After some welcoming remarks from Melissa Lane (Princeton University) and Derek Hand (Dublin City University), Prof. Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University), summarised the main political events leading up to Brexit, in order to highlight the consequences. She showed the distribution of the vote of the 2016 Brexit referendum, and the differences between the UK’s four constituent countries. Then, she underlined the political instability that the UK had experienced since the Brexit referendum and, in particular, since Cameron’s resignation. He was succeeded by four Prime Ministers, whose mandates were short and characterized by political delay and instability. It was Theresa May who, in succeeding David Cameron, triggered Art. 50 Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and legally started the Brexit process. However, she could not finalize it, since the Parliament stalled the approval of her Withdrawal Agreement (WA). Boris Johnson, on the contrary, managed to “get Brexit done”, but the moment his WA was signed he changed his mind on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Overall, Brexit has been a stressful experience for the UK’s constitution, it has posed challenges to the separation of powers, and it has shown the fragile relations between the UK’s four constituent countries (e.g. Northern Ireland and Scotland were basically dragged into Brexit by England).
Fintan O’Toole (Princeton University, Irish Times), said that some miscalculations were done when Brexit happened, regarding at least three levels: political, diplomatic and geographic. First, the political miscalculation concerns mostly Northern Ireland (NI) and its communities. He thinks NI is no longer either a Unionist or a Nationalist majority country. He said that the Unionists perceived Brexit as “an holiday from the Belfast Agreement”, to realize only later on that “it was a one way ticket”. The paradox is that the UK’s Union was weakened by the Unionists themselves. Second, the diplomatic miscalculation was to cut NI out the Brexit campaign, as it was a very sensitive issue. Finally, a geographic miscalculation has been made: the Ireland/NI border was never meant to be an international border.
Martin Flaherty (Princeton University, Fordham Law School) described Brexit as a “turn away from Law”, in particular from international Law and from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He explained the negative consequences of Brexit on the compliance with Art. 2 ECHR. The right of life is a negative right, that poses a positive obligation to the States, to run an investigation for murders. Unfortunately, there are still many unsolved political murders regarding NI and the troubles. Both the UK and the Republic of Ireland had to incorporate the ECHR provisions into domestic law. However, the Bill of Rights Act resulting from Brexit has undermined the application of Art. 2 ECHR, narrowing the interpretation of ECHR Rights.
Federico Fabbrini (Princeton University, Dublin City University, Brexit Institute Founding Director) presented the activity of the DCU Brexit Institute and its latest publications and events. He summed up the main consequences of Brexit in three points: on the UK’s Constitution, on EU’s integration and on transatlantic relations. On the one hand, Brexit weakened the UK’s political and institutional stability. On the other hand, it opened new EU integration opportunities. Brexit, together with the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, posed many challenges on the constitutional architecture of the EU. However, the EU managed to find opportunities of further integration, introducing the Next Generation EU (NGEU) Recovery Plan, to build Europe’s environmental and digital future. Finally, Brexit posed challenges for the transatlantic relations. The US has had an ambiguous position towards Brexit, partially due to the political shifts in the US Presidency. The UK seems to still have military influence, making it difficult to progress in the area of EU defence and security policy.
A vivid discussion followed, where the audience was eager to get more insights about the non-compliance of ECHR, and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.