After Article 50, now article 127?

 

 

First there was article 50 and the issue of whether it is for Parliament to authorise the process of leaving the EU – which occupied the Supreme Court last month. Now a similar set of proceedings have been issued arguing that leaving the EU will not automatically mean leaving the European Economic Area and this will have to be done pursuant to s. 127 of the Agreement on the European Economic Area. This provides:

 

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

 

However, article 126 applies the agreement to the territories to which the treaty establishing the European Economic Community is applied and under the conditions laid out under that treaty. It is, therefore, likely to be the case that the UK’s membership of the EEA would terminate automatically on leaving the EU.

 

Brexit may mean Brexit, whatever that May mean, but it certainly means good money for lawyers.

 

Published by

Professor Simon Baughen

Professor Simon Baughen was appointed as Professor of Shipping Law in September 2013 (previously Reader at the University of Bristol Law School). Simon Baughen studied law at Oxford and practised in maritime law for several years before joining academia. His research interests lie mainly in the field of shipping law, but also include the law of trusts and the environmental law implications of the activities of multinational corporations in the developing world. Simon's book on Shipping Law, has run to seven editions (soon to be eight) and is already well-known to academics and students alike as by far the most learned and approachable work on the subject. Furthermore, he is now the author of the very well-established practitioner's work Summerskill on Laytime. He has an extensive list of publications to his name, including International Trade and the Protection of the Environment, and Human Rights and Corporate Wrongs - Closing the Governance Gap. He has also written and taught extensively on commercial law, trusts and environmental law. Simon is a member of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, a University Research Centre within the School of Law, and he currently teaches at Swansea on the LLM in:Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air; Charterparties Law and Practice; International Corporate Governance.

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