16/09/2020

A breach of International Law in a very specific and limited way…

Twenty Essex has a proud legacy advising on complex and sensitive public international law mandates. Our barristers include former members and officials of government foreign ministries, international organisations and international courts and tribunals.

Professor Stefan Talmon has written an article providing a German perspective on the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. He explains how the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court in 2015 had to deal with similar questions of treaty override. It had concluded that parliament can make laws that violate the country’s international treaty obligations and are thus valid and effective in the domestic legal order. At the same time, such laws constitute internationally wrongful acts that give rise to the responsibility of the State in the international legal order. That one and the same act can be both legal and illegal at the same time is a consequence of the dualist approach to international law taken by both Germany and the UK.

Professor Stefan Talmon is Professor of Public Law, Public International Law and European Law, and Co-Director of the Institute of Public International Law at the University of Bonn. He is currently also a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Read the full commentary