Reply To: More on Brexit

The discussion amongst international law lawyers about how to get out of the “backstop” is very revealing. It confirms what we have always said that, in the end, treaties are just scraps of paper that any state can get out of if and when it wants.

One of them, with the perhaps appropriate name of Pannick, says that what the UK would need to do to get out of the backstop would be to invoke Article 62 of the Vienna Convention of the Law of Treaties by claiming that “a fundamental change of circumstances” had occurred:

Some MPs have suggested looking into whether the backstop could be solved by using Article 62 of the Vienna Convention – which would allow the UK to withdraw from any treaty if there had been “a fundamental change of circumstances… which was not foreseen by the parties”.

In a letter to the Times, cross-bench peer and QC Lord Pannick said the UK would be “entitled to terminate the withdrawal agreement” under this clause – although he questioned whether it would be “wise politically”.

Evidently this Article is the let-out clause that is always in the small print of all legal documents. Any lawyer worth their salt should be able to come up with some specious argument about how circumstances had changed and that this was not foreseen. After all, that’s their trade.