Episode 5: Breaking Bad - in a Specific and Limited Way

In this episode Dapo Akande, Marko Milanovic, Sarah Nouwen and
Philippa Webb analyse the Internal Market Bill currently
pending before the UK Parliament, which the UK government’s own
legal officers admit breaches international law by reneging on
parts of the Withdrawal Agreement with the European Union and the
Northern Ireland Protocol thereto that the UK had freely entered
into less than a year ago. The team discuss why the UK government
has put this Bill forward, how it is fairly unique for a state to
admit to breaking international law before actually doing so, and
why no international legal argument would work to justify this
course of action. The team also discuss whether the concept of
the rule of law should be bifurcated between the domestic and the
international spheres, and what the role of governmental legal
advisors should be in such situations.