 Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's really fantastic to welcome so many of you to this seminar on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It's a joint sales centre for public law and the Lauterpack Centre venture. I'm very grateful to all of my colleagues who have agreed to speak and particularly to Marcus Gehring who's done the legwork to pull all of this together. Now I think a lot of us have spent quite a lot of time with the TCA probably more time with the TCA than we have with their own families over Christmas which may be to benefit or to our detriment but the fact is this is a really difficult text. And so what we're saying today is really a first dive into the text to try and work out the structure, what it's saying and some of the key messages. So I'd like to turn now to Marcus who is kindly chairing the first section on the main elements of the TCA. Marcus over to you. Marcus your videos off. Yes, thank you very much, Catherine, and we should go straight into our first panel. We briefly introduce our distinguished panelists will start with Lauren Bartels who is a reader in international trade law and will talk to us about international trade, including covering the difficult provisions of rules of origin in the TCA. And then we have Professor Catherine Barnard who's Professor of EU and labor law in the University of Cambridge, presenting on services and the institutional arrangements. And the final speaker is Professor Kenneth Armstrong, who has a chair in European Union law in the University. Welcome to you all, Lauren, you have the floor. Yes, and hello, everybody. So my task is very briefly to outline some of the main points on on how the TCA deals with trade in goods and in a way my job is easy, because the TCA is fairly normal among FTAs when it comes to trading goods. But what does that mean when the world that we have left was not one of a normal bog standard free trade agreement so maybe one of the ways that I can explain what's going on with the TCA is to contrast it in some ways to the arrangements that we have now left at the end of the year. So I want to do this in three parts. Firstly, I want to talk a little bit about duties. Secondly, about regulations and then thirdly, what are called trade remedies, which are a type of duty. I'll treat it slightly separately so I'll do them at the end. As far as duties are concerned, as much advertised, we have no duties on goods that move between the EU and the UK, or so you might think, that's actually not quite true. We have no duties on goods that move between the EU and the UK provided that they originate in the EU and the UK, and that is a major difference between a free trade agreement and the customs union, which is what we've left. The customs union, once the product is in the territory of the customs union, it doesn't really matter where it entered, whether it came via Hanover or last year, London, the same customs duty was applied. And so once the good was inside the wall, it was treated as equivalent to domestic products and moved around quite freely. Now that's not the case anymore because the duty rates are going to be different. A little bit at the moment between the UK and the EU and one would expect that these will diverge over time and that means that it's important to make sure the free trade agreement only comes from the EU side UK goods and from the UK side. The old saying is a free trade agreement is only as good as your rules of origin and most of the negotiations on trading goods are actually to do with rules of origin. So what are these rules of origin? Well, they are very complicated and they will keep us all going for a long time. Essentially there needs to, there are different ways of doing it. The way this agreement does it is in part, there are other ways of doing it, even within this agreement, that there's got to be half of the product has to come from the UK, if we look at it from that point of view. Which is actually, in some respects, a generous rule of origin. But we've already seen in the news where this doesn't exactly work. So what if, for instance, some of the product comes from the EU? Well, in fact, there is a rule called cumulation which says it's all right if some of the product comes from the EU, the input comes from the EU. It doesn't really matter whether they're originating parts of the product of the UK or EU, except as we've seen, there has to actually be something happening to the product for all of this to work. So a product that comes from the EU, a totally EU product, that comes to the UK on a truck is unpackaged in the UK from or unwrapped or whatever and then sent back to the EU, which is commonly what happens with products coming over the so-called land bridge into Ireland, is not an originating UK product. It's not for the purposes of getting back into the EU anymore, an originating EU product because it's left the EU and therefore it gets hit with customs duties, potentially twice. And this is a real problem. It means that you can't just operate as a distribution hub of products to which nothing has been done in the UK. So this is a genuine problem, which is going to see products being rerouted around the UK for distributional purposes. What else can one say about rules of origin? Well, they are extremely complicated. I mean, I'll give you an example when it comes to fish, you decide on whether the fish originate according to how many, what proportion of crew members have the relevant nationality and where the boat is flagged and that sort of thing. So this is the major difference at a simplified level of what we've got now as a free trade agreement and a customer. Moving along very quickly with regulations. This is also very significantly different from the single market now, not a customs union, but the single market and essentially we've got two levels to talk about. There are the rules, which we can call standards to simplify a little bit, which is basically the same, you know, what's in a product and sometimes how it is made. And these were, of course, largely the same. And if they weren't the same, they were treated as being functionally the same in the EU according to a principle called mutual recognition of standards. But in addition, there's another level which is the checks and the checks go by the name of conformity assessment mainly or when it comes to agricultural products. There are, there's a different terminology that is used control and approval processes which means that even if a product from the UK is made according to the same standards and nothing has changed since the 31st of December. So that doesn't mean that it can be certified as meeting that standard which is still equivalent to the EU standard from the EU's point of view. They want to now conduct their own checks to make sure that the UK product meets the EU standard which has to be the same as the UK standard and this is where a lot of the friction at the border comes in. It's exacerbated when the standards themselves vary, which we haven't seen yet, but I expect we will see soon, particularly with uniquely modified organisms but even when the standards are exactly the same, the EU is imposing checks. Now, whether they can do this is an interesting question. I mean, this story of the Dutch taking away the ham and cheese sandwiches from the drivers frankly. I mean, it's obviously ridiculous. But more importantly, I wonder whether legally under the TCA it's even permissible because these checks are subject to a condition that they address risks in a proportionate manner. And it's absurd to say that those ham and cheese sandwiches are any more dangerous than they were, not saying they're safe. The point is, are they any more dangerous than they were. And another treated as being the same. So there's work to be done there. Obviously, that's a trivial example in economic terms, but it does illustrate the point the EU has taken a very hard line. It said, we can't trust anything in the UK. It's a third country. No basis for trust might as well be, you know, some famously awful country like New Zealand. Well, although it'd be fair for Australia. Whether or not you can get away with that from either under the TCA, interestingly, because there is all this proportionality language there, or more importantly, under the WTO, which actually talks about this as well, is a question we need to come to. Finally, and very quickly, trade remedies will trade remedies are to protect you from either unfair practices on an exporting country and the unfair practices are of two types companies that sell to you below cost simplified, right. So like predatory pricing in competition. This is a big oversimplification, by the way, as anyone who knows this will well know that that gives you an understanding of what's going on for those who don't. And secondly, subsidization by governments, which is a kind of going to talk about a little bit more and how it's addressed at a more systemic level. And another problem that can arise is when you haven't anticipated a lot and lots of products coming in, which destroy badly damaged your domestic. Now, in all of these cases, you're entitled to impose on the normal trade rules, trade remedies or procedures need to show various things. Now, interestingly, the TCA allows for all of this normal trade remedies apply. There are two EU products so dumped products by EU companies subsidized products from the EU and unexpected surges and imports from the EU can all be hit by the UK by imposing additional duties on the products and vice versa. One final point I'm going to hand over is how does this all connect with Northern Ireland again Ken's going to talk about Northern Ireland but I would just say one thing on this final point which is that both the EU and the UK claim to be able to impose their trade remedies on products going into Northern Ireland EU on the basis that I imagine these products are at risk of ending up in the EU market so you want to hit them. At the GB NI border or the rest of the world and I border and the UK on the basis that as the protocol says Northern Ireland is within the customs union of the United Kingdom. That is an interesting overlap of regimes which presumably the joint committee on the protocol is now thinking about how to sort out with that I will stop and have a look at thank you very much. Thank you very much Lauren. Catherine the floor is yours. Thank you very much. Okay, so I want thank you very much I want to talk very briefly about institutions dispute settlement and services, all in about seven or eight minutes. So it's going to be a whistle stop tour. I want to start with governance and specifically the structure of the treaty. So important to note, there is essentially one main treaty there are two separate ones on very specific topics but for our purposes as one main treaty with overarching institutional and dispute resolution provisions. And then there are it's essentially subdivided into the pillars that I have outlined of which the FDA pillar is clearly the largest in the one that we will should be talking about mainly today but don't forget the rather generous and slightly unexpected detailed important pillar that John Spencer will be talking about. And the really important and significant annexes. One other point to note I think is the emphasis on the number of additional agreements that may well be entered into. And indeed any future agreement will be subject to this same institutional structure. And that's important because unlike Switzerland, Switzerland, of course has 120 or so bilateral agreements and what the EU wanted is a structure rather like the one that you find in the TCA. A couple of points to note, first of all, that there are common institutional provisions but in that there is a strong emphasis on the fact that this is an agreement under international law, not under EU law. There will be interpreted in accordance with customer international law including the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties, and it's absolutely clear that there is no direct effect. Second point is that the implementation of the TCA is to be reviewed every five years together with the review in Northern Ireland. For four years on the continuing consent, it makes me concerned that this is a rather unstable deal, because depending on the politics, this deal can be challenged in the run up to the next Westminster elections. Second point is about governance structure. This slide I have, I agree oversimplified the governance structure but in essence what you have is the Partnership Council at the top which is the political body, which may have input from the assembly of Parliament, the UK, question mark what about the devolves and the European Parliament. And yet a lot of the work will be done by technical committees, in particular the trade partnership committee but there are a bunch of other specialized committees and working groups with which Anton Spissack very helpfully has pulled together on this slide. I will not go through the committees but just to give you a flavor of the complex institutional underbelly of this agreement. The Partnership Council has a lot of power. It can make legally binding decisions and not legally binding recommendations, including to amend the treaty itself in certain places. As far as dispute resolution is concerned. At one level, it looks straightforward because you have got one big dispute resolution mechanism, which maps to an extent on to what you find in the WTO. In fact, the more you read the treaty, the more you see that there are many dispute resolution mechanisms, some of which seem to expressly dis-apply the general dispute resolution mechanism. But in fact, although they say they dis-apply the dispute resolution mechanism, you see that they log back into parts of the dispute resolution mechanism. And a good example of that is in respect of the level playing field rules in respect of social matters and environmental matters, and also the rebalancing provisions. But if we just focus on the main dispute resolution mechanism. Actually, there are four questions or four stages. Stage one, you've got to work out whether the dispute falls within the scope, and that scope issue is important, because it also impacts in respect of the compliance. If we go to a more political stage consultations, trying to sort out the problem and hopefully it can be resolved at this stage. If not, it goes to arbitration. Three arbitrators with expertise in domestic law and international law, not EU law as is the case under the withdrawal agreement. And they then draft an interim report which either side can comment on, and then they can make a final report in up to 160 days after the start of the process so a relatively speedy process. Note, there is unlike under the WTO there's no provision for an appeal against the decision of the arbitration panel. If you go into compliance now the defaulting state has got to comply within a reasonable period or offer suitable agreed compensation. If it's not possible, then you go into what are I think rather misleadingly called temporary remedies, which allows for proportionate cross retaliation across all economic sectors, which means essentially putting tariffs on goods. Of course the EU is extremely good at working out what are the most sensitive sectors on which to put tariffs. And so prime examples would be things like Scottish salmon, Scottish whiskey. And of course that in itself raises issues internally within the UK in respect of devolution. So that's what I want to say by way of introduction just to the governance and the dispute resolution. The final thing I was asked to talk about was to say something about services. Now services is fiendishly complicated. What I thought I would focus on is the movement of natural persons, which is the area that's actually attracting the attention at the moment, because of musicians and you'll know that musicians are very concerned that they have lost free movement rights. Are they right to be concerned. Yes they are, because under the provisions in the services chapters on the in the TCA. So the increased movement for natural persons is extremely limited. For those of you who know your gets there are four modes. Mode one is cross border supply so where I supply a service from the UK into France. Mode two is where I travel to France to receive a service such as tourism. Mode one and mode to are dealt with together in the TCA in chapter three. And it's worth bearing in mind that in respect of particularly mode one which is the big issue. There are 200 pages of reservations. So despite the commitments that are made in the main part of the treaty, the devil really is in the detail. So if you look at the objective mode to where I travel to France to receive a service, including tourism. I have, there is the possibility of being there for 90 days out of 180 days, not great for those who want to get some summer, some winter sun in Spain, because they can only go for three months. They've got to come back for a period of time. I another three months before they can go to Spain again. So this is not what they had before mode three commercial presence is about mainly legal persons establishing themselves. And that's of course not relevant to musicians or to any other natural person. But what there is is a chapter chapter four on the presence of natural persons and this bit is complicated. In essence, what chapter four does is to allow as to number of free trade agreements the possibility for people to travel as icts intercorp transferies business visitors for establishment purposes, contract service suppliers, independent professional providers of services, and short term business visitors. Now this is where it gets really messy but in headline terms, the you are allowed to travel if you fall into various quite tightly defined categories and you can get yourselves into one of these headings. And then the TCA lays down the period of time that you can stay and whether it is visa or work permit free of which only business visitors BVEs and STBVs are visa or permit free. And then the question is, can you get paid when you go to provide those services. And if we focus on the short term business visitors, which is the more generous category that the government is proud of having included in the treaty. There are a bunch of things that you can do so I can go to France to do some research or to attend a training seminar. But what I can't do is get paid by anyone in France, which is where your musicians come a cropper, because it's unlikely that they will fall into any of the other categories. And even though they can go and play music for free, even though even that's made me not clear, because musicians just aren't covered in the STBV list. The bottom line is that whatever Boris Johnson said in to the liaison committee yesterday that musicians should have nothing to worry about. I'm afraid that is fundamentally untrue. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Catherine. We go straight to Professor Armstrong. Kenneth. Thanks very much Marcus. And so my comments today are focused on the level playing field obligations, which are contained in the TCA. And I go into some more detail in a blog that I posted this morning on my Brexit time.com blog. And my remarks are more or less based on that blog post. Now it's clear that the inclusion of a title in the agreement, creating level playing field obligate obligations prove very controversial and disagreements could have have derailed the negotiations. This is from a political angle and also from a legal angle. The political angle is that the UK clearly didn't want a trading relationship with the EU based on continuing compliance with EU rules. Leaving the single market was about just that. If Brexit meant anything, it had to mean autonomy over its laws, including a freedom to diverge from EU rules. It also wanted to protect its autonomy and wasn't willing to grant tariff free access to its markets, only to face potentially unfair competition from the UK. In terms of the UK's approach to subsidies, application of competition rule and tax rules and any diminution on labour and environmental standards. In a joint political declaration, both sides had committed to the inclusion of robust commitments on a level playing field for open and fair competition. However, their initial draft agreements published in early 2020 showed a chasm in their political expectations. They cut and pasted a set of thin exhortations from the EU Canada trade agreement with WTO norms, WTO norms and international standards as the base reference points. The EU envisaged a significant level of compliance with EU rules, non-regression commitments, including mechanisms for increasing protection through amendments to the agreements we made by the partnership council or through various ratchet mechanisms. The resulting title 11 of part one of the agreement is an inevitable compromise. Texturally, it is based on the EU draft, but significant changes have been made to reflect the UK's demands for greater autonomy. From a legal perspective, what is interesting is just how uneven the level playing field is when one looks across the areas of subsidy control, competition and tax policies and labour and environmental standards. That unevenness relates to the sources of the underlying norms that establish commitments as well as the enforcement and dispute resolution mechanisms. Thinking first about the sources of norms, clearly the UK was unwilling to remain directly bound by EU rules, although it had already conceded that compliance with EU rules would form part of the Northern Ireland protocol attached to the withdrawal agreement. The attempts by the EU to commit the UK to direct compliance with an annexed list of state aid rules was repelled, and instead it's the agreement itself, which is the direct source of the commitments on subsidy control, although as George Parrots QC has noted these provisions themselves mirror EU state aid rules. Conversely, whereas the EU had originally wanted the agreement to contain substantive competition law provisions, the agreement instead commits both parties to following their respective competition law regimes. In respect to taxation matters, both sides had a relatively similar starting point in tethering their commitments to international standards, including OECD provisions on base erosion and profit sharing. However, the EU also wanted the UK to commit to the code of conduct on business taxation agreed by EU ministers back in 1997, but this was not accepted by the UK. Now tethering both the EU and the UK to the commitments under international rules and standards is a way of minimizing divergence between both parties and avoiding unilateral defections from common rules. However, it may establish a relatively minimal baseline of protection, and unsurprisingly the EU sought to bind the UK more closely to the common standards of both the EU and the UK at the end of the transition period. In tax matters, the EU sought to pin the UK to common tax avoidance measures, but without success. And instead there are specific non regression commitments in respect of OECD instruments and certain common rules, but not including tax avoidance measures. Provisions that would have given the partnership council powers to amend the agreement and increase standards didn't make it into into the final agreement. And then labour and environmental standards, whereas the UK saw on the grid saw non regression in terms of the type of broad exhortations copy and pasted from from CETA. The EU was more specific in seeking to benchmark non regression against common EU roles as at the end of the transition period and in seeking improvement to standards over time, and then ratcheting the benchmark for non regression against this rising floor of standards. The ratchet provision never made it into the final agreement, but the UK did accept the basic principle of non regression based on the positions at the end of the transition period and agreed to strive to improve standards. International agreements are however still of relevance to alignment of the EU and the UK in both labour and environmental standards. Enforcement of commitments also varies across policy areas. It's particularly noteworthy that in the subsidy control and competition fields, both parties commit to maintaining operationally independent and impartial enforcement authorities. And I think what is striking about that is how that actually might have impact on the European Commission as both a political executive, but also a state aid and competition law enforcement agency. In terms of labour law, the emphasis is more on ensuring that domestic administrative and judicial bodies are capable of enforcing domestic laws, including ensuring effective remedies. But this is very much a matter within the autonomy of the respective parties and their legal systems. Finally, as for dispute resolution. As Catherine has underlined part six of the agreement sets out dispute resolution mechanisms. And in addition, chapter nine of title 11 of part one creates horizontal provisions applicable specifically to these level playing field obligations. The transition and tax matters part six isn't applicable. It is applicable to subsidy control, but not in respect of individual subsidies again underlying the point that Catherine made about the differential application of the dispute resolution mechanisms for labour and environmental standards, including disputes over the non regression levels, the horizontal provisions in chapter nine exclusively apply requiring disputes to be resolved by expert panels to be created. The most challenging aspects of the horizontal provisions are the rebalancing measures which may be taken if the parties consider that divergence has a material impact on trade investment. The CAA lacks clarity as to what these rebalancing measures might be, but they are to be specific, time limited, strictly necessary and proportionate. Action may be taken relatively swiftly. And if recourse to these measures proves to be frequent, there is a review mechanism built into the agreement, which would allow the entire part one of the agreement on goods to be considered. So to conclude from a legal perspective, the level playing field obligations are uneven across the different policy areas, falling within its scope. These reflect different political positions, but they also reflect what was always the heterogeneous nature of EU policies across these different sectors. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Armstrong. I should remind the audience that you should please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen we will have the Q&A at the very end so please post your questions to the panellists in the Q&A function. And I'd like to hand over to Lauren Bottles please. Right, so it's now my pleasure to introduce panel number two, which is on some specific elements of the TCA. Everybody that I will refer to is at Cambridge in one capacity or other, although in the case of Professor John Spencer he was at Cambridge is now emeritus professor so in that sense he's still at Cambridge so we have Dr Martin Steinfeld who will talk about human rights law. And Dr Marcus Gehring who you have just seen who will talk about the environment and climate change. Dr David Url also will talk about data protection, and Professor Spencer who will talk about criminal law cooperation. So let me now hand over first to Martin. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you Dr Bottles. I feel very much like I know Dr Gehring doesn't want me to refer to food analogies so the closest I'll get is to say that I'm either the amuse-bouche or aperitif for much more interesting colleagues to come. I'm not interested to hear from them. But I would like to just outline briefly, I suppose my perspective on the new world that we're in with the TCA and human rights. I suppose with free movement of persons now gone with a course of the, with the exception of natural persons and the way that Professor Barnard has outlined how relevant is, is human rights in the TCA now. It's still considered to be important under the TCA because it's mentioned immediately in the preamble to the TCA. The preamble refers to the fact that both parties reaffirmed their commitment to democratic principles to the rule of law to human rights and of course to other matters such as in relation to the fight against climate change. So what I'd like to do in this very brief presentation is to ask perhaps a what if question. What if the United Kingdom decided that it wanted to quit the European Conventional Human Rights or repeal the Human Rights Act, just to illustrate perhaps how this would flow into the TCA. So, the reason why I've asked this question is to see how the TCA is similar or is different from other agreements with third countries with the European Union, and how they implement human rights norms within the frameworks of those of those texts so to give an example I'm going to bring up is the Katonia agreement with the ACP countries. So, there is no regime for free movement anymore we're in this world where the charter isn't to certain extent applicable. So there are some key parts of the TCA where the issue of human rights is still highly relevant. Whilst it was inserted right at the start on the original draft of the TCA back in May of last year. There will be negotiated to form to be buried 418 pages into the agreements under what is now article Comprove for and in under article Comprove for both sides commit to upholds shared values which includes respect for human rights. I think the European Convention UN equivalent but is mentioned but the European Convention is not mentioned as one of those human rights instruments that are shared. It is then defined as an essential elements under Comprove 12 of that same part of the agreement. One of the implications of that is that under art in 35. I'm not sure whether might the previous panelists have referred to these horribly phrased articles yet but we're in this in in this world now, but under art in 35 a failure to fulfill those obligations. That is an essential element in a serious and substantial sense could then lead to termination of the agreement. However, it's unlikely that this would happen, even if in the case of the UK, either repealing the Human Rights Act or quitting the Convention altogether why do I say that well firstly, there's a procedure that has to be followed at the article two of sorry under subsection two of article in 35 and perhaps more importantly both parties including the EU would have to act in a way that it was fully respects international law and is proportionate. Perhaps even more important is subsection four of art in 35, which states that suspension of the agreement would only take place if the behavior by in this case the UK is of such a gravity in nature, and would be of such an exceptional sort that it would threaten peace or security, or have international repercussions. Well, if you think about it, the UK repealing the Human Rights Act would simply put the United Kingdom in a position that it was prior to 1998 where it had already been a member of the state, for instance, the European Union for 30 years. So in my view, at least it would be hard to argue that subsection four could could apply here or the whole of art in 35. Also, even if it quit the European Convention altogether. This is not me being spokesperson for the Conservative Party for those that know me that would never happen. But it's, to be fair, David Cameron in 2010 did make the pledge that even if this happens, there wouldn't be some void of human rights protection within the United Kingdom a domestic bill of rights would be installed instead. If we tie that in with the development of common or constitutionalism, we are in a world where it would be hard to say that the UK is behaving in a way that is of such a gravity in nature to justify invoking these provisions. But it could be used as a threat contrast this with this situation under article seven of the TEU and Poland now I wish I had more time Professor Barnard referred to this as well we wish we had more time. But actually, one of the reasons I wanted to bring up the EU equivalent is what to compare and contrast which essentially is better or worse. On one level. The UK stands to lose a huge amount by contrast with the situation of the UK. If it's deprived of voting rights in the council under article seven. That being said, unanimity is required, which is why Poland and Hungary have not actually had any measures taken against them. On one level, it is, despite the fact that actually proving article 35 for is is serious. The UK is procedure in one level is is much simpler, all the EU needs to do is to invoke it. So, I certainly don't think it's as simple as suggesting that the United Kingdom is not perhaps going to think of the implications if it decided to do this. This then gets even more serious. If you look at the implications on the police and judicial cooperation and criminal matters aspects under the TCA, which is in part three. I'm not going to go too much into this because Professor Spencer I have no doubt will refer to this, but under article. Well, there are pretty broad powers and under part three in general. This includes things that are important for United Kingdom on data sharing so I'm not going to eat into and to Dr. Time as well, terrorists financing and of course the European world, the arrest warrant. But article three, Jim three of part three makes it clear that that the UK needs to exercise its powers under here and the EU in accordance with human rights and this time the European Convention is mentioned. And the entire process here presupposes convention membership by the UK. And if it quit, there would be big consequences, because art law other 136 apart through three makes it clear that if the UK denounces quote unquote the convention, then part three after nine months would cease to apply all together. I would like to end just quickly by referring perhaps to other international agreements I like the Katonya agreement, because it appears to contain similar elements to what's in the TCA. There is an essential element aspect of it in article nine of the Katonya agreements, human rights is considered to be important under the Katonya agreement and it is possible for the agreement to be suspended in holder in part. And this is an agrarious human rights breach by some of the ACP countries and of course the EU member states as well. However, if you look at the agreement it looks very much like what I would call a persuasive or soft norms approach, rather than the type of approach that is taken. And this is because the TCA is an entirely different type of agreement from these other types of agreements for which human rights are mentioned because for the UK. So I think that collaboration and data sharing is extremely important to it amongst other things. I think that's all I have to say on that point and I'm very much looking forward to the other panelists. And thank you Dr Bartels for sharing. Thank you very much. Now, let me move straight on to Marcus. Thank you very much, Lawrence. So, unlike in many other areas of this less free trade agreement. There are actually very important innovations for for a trade agreement in the field of environmental protection and climate change. I would say that these are not as innovative as maybe some of the association agreement provisions for countries that wish to join the European Union, but for a straight up free trade agreement. These are truly revolutionary and I'd like to highlight just a few. I was quite surprised by the final agreement, because it is in keeping with the very high ambition that the European Union had for climate change. While the UK draft didn't contain any specific obligations on climate change, because the EU wanted a standalone energy agreement in which to integrate them. The political declaration didn't actually commit to a very high level of climate ambition, just mandated negotiations and discussions about climate change. Now, the preamble is already quite innovative after a standard preamble that we find in many you through trade agreement. And of course, the level playing field part of the preamble, which also highlights climate change and environment protection as part of these level playing field provisions. Even as Dr. Steinfeld just reported we have the material breach provisions at the very end, under Comfort five we see that the fight against climate change is one of those provisions that form the basis of the cooperation along with the rule of law, human rights and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to name just a few. It's an essential element of the partnership established by the TCA and any supplementing agreement so it's not something that the parties could just set aside if they so decide. The action is copied from the EU draft with the only slight change that man made climate change was changed into a more gender neutral human caused climate change. This is one of the strongest that we find in any trade agreement declaring that climate change represents an existential threat to humanity and that each party shall respect the Paris agreement and the process set up by the UN FCCC and refrain from acts or actions that would materially defeat the object and purpose of the Paris agreement. Under title 11 we have the level playing field provisions, and then in chapter seven we have environment and climate change provisions, which set out the details of what is actually the commitment. Here we see the level of environmental protection being defined as many areas over which the EU has competence, but for example, omitting soil protection, because soil protection is largely in the competence of the member states. But the level of climate, the climate level of protection is defined by the previous 2030 targets of 40% reduction by 2030 for the entire EU, and that would equate to a 37% reduction by 2030 based on 2005 levels. Now, of course, in December, both the EU and the UK announced much more ambitious 2030 targets, 55% for the EU and 68% of reduction for the UK under 1990 levels, but these were presumably negotiated before those concrete reduction commitments were made. But we find very strict, as previous speakers have alluded to very strict non regression provisions containing mandatory language. And there is some discussion among environmental groups about this term that was introduced by the UK in a manner affecting trade and investment in article 7.2.2. In my view, if we use WTO interpretation of affecting trade or investment, that just means it needs to have an economic impact. I don't think it means any kind of elevated level of proof how concretely these changes could affect international trade. And then of course, I think Professor Armstrong mentioned the the significant provision called rebalancing. So the ratcheting up provisions in article nine for which means if there are significant divergence between the parties in a field like environment or climate then there could be balancing limited balancing measures adopted. Of course, material impacts on trade investment arise as a result of significant divergences are two very high levels that needs that need to be met in order to adopt those balancing measures but nonetheless, especially with regards to climate change, we could see those thresholds being met. Chapter eight contains the environment and sustainable development provisions. And here, this is largely based on the EU draft, whereby the parties agreed to basically water down the language using less mandatory language. So instead of promote trade in products derived from the sustainable use of biological resources, it now says encourage trade in products derived from a sustainable use of natural resources. So fewer commitments based from from the basis of the EU draft, but nonetheless, very ambitious language with regards to climate change biodiversity, and even forestry protection where future generations are mentioned. Now, environmental principles from the EU are not directly contained in the agreement. Instead, the parties opted for international principles, but then proceeded to list basically the established principles that can be found in the real declaration but also in the TFEU in article 191. So to conclude, I think with regards to the climate change and environment provisions. This is the most ambitious free trade agreement that I've seen. So I hope that it could provide a blueprint for future free trade agreements, either by the UK, or indeed the European Union. And we all know that for example the Mercosur agreement is still in the legal scrubbing process. So maybe some of the ambition on environment and climate change could be copied into those agreements. Thank you very much, Lauren. Okay, let's move straight on to David on data protection. Thank you very much, Lauren. And it's great to be part of this event and thank you especially to Marcus for all his work on it. So I'm going to be talking about personal data and the Brexit agreement. And I think this is really a story of two halves, which need to be in some sense synthesized as well. So the first half and in a way what's what's the most material in the agreement relates to the exchange of personal data for broadly criminal justice purposes. I mean it's known within the EU context of the era of freedom justice and security nice kind of lovely words for essentially criminal justice. And the outcome here is that there is quite extensive provision for the exchange of personal data so so called prum data from the prum agreement, which is DNA fingerprint and vehicle registration data. And the name record data for flights, criminal records and more diffuse exchange, including in the context of cooperation with Europola and Eurojust. These, in a sense, indirect through national contact points, but there is the emphasis on ensuring 24 seven access and so I think that that is really significant data sharing. The loss is of the Schengen information system and access to your attack which is fingerprint database itself, although they are some limited provisions on missing persons and objects. However, I think that is probably more of a consequence of the loss of free movement than anything to do with data protection in and of itself. So, all of this is subject to very extensive data protection safeguard and I won't go through them all but accuracy necessity time limitation, things on encryption and data breaches data protection oversight by by a regulator and even an evaluation did a visit in the case of prum data. But all of those provisions are targeted on the information actually being transferred in these quite specialist provisions, not on the wider ecosystem. And that is in the way the second half, which is what is the framework for that wider ecosystem of data protection and free flow. In the interim period, we're not a third country, evidently the agreement establishes that as long as we don't make any significant legal amendment to our law which obviously is broadly similar to EU law, then in an interim period will essentially be treated as part of the economic area of European economic area. And that's subject to us granting the EU adequacy data adequacy. That comes to an end though, within six months it's four months and extendable for two, and whenever adequacy is obtained. Other clauses particularly emphasize the independent right to regulate data protection along with a whole load of other things like consumer protection, many things in the environment cultural diversity. And the only exception there is the right again rather specialist area of direct marketing. So mutual adequacy is clearly the goal. And yes, the Court of Justice post Shrems has talked about mutual adequacy as essential equivalence with the EU arrangements. But we know that countries with very different data protection frameworks like New Zealand which has been mentioned, and also Israel have somehow attained this status. So it seems achievable for the UK but adequacy is not the same as no barriers to the free flow of personal data it's not necessarily stable as the US has found out. They are potentially transparency and documentation requirements. If companies and other controllers are targeting the EU market, for example offering goods and services, then they will now have the obligation to follow local law and local regulation. So, what is the stocktake of all of this then bringing them both together will seeming that adequacy is obtained. We will have the closest possible personal data relationship with the EU outside the EEA and Switzerland. But that relationship is not all that close talks under or suggestions under Theresa May and from some elements of big business that there would be some kind of formal arrangement for institutional regulatory cooperation have not been obtained. And the analogy with Switzerland shouldn't be taken too far. Now, that isn't primarily an issue of institutions, Switzerland does have limited regulatory cooperation in the context of Schengen and Euridak. But it doesn't, for example, have any PNR, a passenger name record agreement with the EU. It's more a matter of normative commitment. Switzerland is very much within the EU norm and actually at the stringent end of the EU norm on data protection. That's actually why there is no PNR agreement I think because Switzerland doesn't require that data in its own internal law out of privacy concerns. The UK, on the other hand, has always been rather skeptical about the EU's approach to data protection about public surveillance about the idea as Michael Gove said that EU law hobbles the internet companies and their development with a very pragmatic regulator. So we're likely to see potential change use of that independent right to regulate and a more distant and potentially fractious relationship with the EU here than say Switzerland. So long as that's in the context of mutual adequacy and one other thing which I haven't mentioned but is the data protection convention at the Council of Europe and bona fide a good implementation of that convention. Then I think that there is still the possibility of moving forward in a positive way on data protection, even with Brexit. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much David and now quickly let me move to John Spencer to talk about justice cooperation. Well, while the newspapers were full of red lines and fishermen being thrown under buses and quotas or not quotas. Nobody heard anything about negotiations on future criminal justice cooperation. To the point where most of us who were interested in this field, gloomily assumed the existing arrangements would just end on the first of January, and we'd be in a relationship with the EU. Just like any other third country is with the EU, not so at all quietly in the background, and without fuss and seemingly with a lot of agreement and astonishing speed, a large packet of measures was agreed, which are entitled free of the treaty. And a lot of it goes further than we thought would actually happen. I think there was a strong community of interest between the UK and the EU, and little feeling that the EU should be made to give something back in return. Both sides thought it was win win to keep as much as much as it was as possible. So, what do we got. Well, here's something we haven't got. One part of EU criminal law is the law relating to some institutions, Europol and your adjust collegiate bodies, which exist to share information and to coordinate the activities. No pass to make orders for what the different authorities in the member states can do but pass to coordinate and help them. You're a poll for police. You're adjust for public prosecutors. We dropped out of that on the first of January 20, and we aren't back into it. However, both those bodies have provision for relationships with third countries who can have a little desk over in the corner. They can't help run it, but they can share some of the facilities. The UK has that kind of arrangement. I think it would have had it even without a treaty and our status as a second class citizen is solemnly reaffirmed in the agreement. So don't help run it anymore. What formerly we fielded a director of Europe poll and to presidents of your adjust, but to quote the phrase which the Brexit is used, put it backwards the EU has taken back control of both of those institutions. The EU criminal door consisted of a lot of police cooperation measures, in particular in the sharing of information and previous speakers have already told us quite a lot about those. And we've managed to stay inside. Nearly all of that with the one important exception that Martin Steinfeld mentioned the, or was it David Erdos or both of you, the Schengen information system, and the UK would have liked to stay in that, but the EU wasn't having it. And it is important because it's a system for flashing information about crimes automatically around the EU, and it is the mechanism by which EU member states announced the issue of European arrest warrants, but the state issues in the European arrest warrants zap, and it goes to all the 27 member states. And when you read Brexiteers complaining about how the UK was overwhelmed by 2000 European arrest warrants attempts, whereas we only got 150 people back or something. It was all misleading because what they were talking about were the signals on the Schengen system of the issue of European arrest warrants they weren't things directed particularly to the UK. And it's a puzzle as to know how our new European arrest warrant light, which I'll talk about in a minute, is going to be signaled around the EU woman or part of the Schengen information system, some kind of work around no doubt will be devised. But it is something of a loss is the Schengen information system. Then moving on quickly. The EU criminal justice provisions included a number of mutual recognition instruments by which the members courts of other member states would automatically recognize or almost automatically recognize decisions made by courts of fellow member states. And it would have been a kind of mutual assistance regime under which one member state or one country would have to go to another say please, could you possibly as a great favor to us in your time and if you've got nothing better to do help us by doing this assistant with your orders Mark Mark and get on with it, you know, arrest him, search for this or whatever. He did in the list here of course was the European arrest warrant, a major enemy in the view of the extreme Tory Brexit tears. And if they had read the treaty they probably wouldn't like the fact that we've got even an EAW light compared with what we had before when they probably wouldn't have wanted to have anything. We have something very recognizably like the European arrest warrant in place of what there was before. But it has a number of respects in which it's weaker. The full list of weaknesses, compared with the other is 10 but I'm only just going to mention one, which is a shoe that I think will pinch. It's that other member states that make it a principle not to surrender their nationals will be able to refuse to surrender their nationals under the EAW light that is now part of the treaty. The UK traditionally was always prepared to surrender its own nationals. And there's no indication that the UK is going to refuse to surrender its nationals to the EU member states under this arrangement, but we can be pretty sure that a number of member states will henceforth, as they used to pre European arrest warrant refuse to surrender their nationals. There are placement measures for the other mutual most of the other mutual recognition instruments, including the European, the EIO the European information for can never remember acronyms and under pressure but they think that gave automatic recognition to things like search warrants. Again, a bit watered down, but quite a lot more than we thought we were going to get. The last thing I will mention in this very brief examination is that the defense lose at everything that's kept is basically favorable to prosecutors. The only thing that's got passed through is helpful to the defense with one exception that I mentioned in a minute. The EU had various rather feeble directives related to safeguarding the rights of defendants. One of which the UK had opted into needless to say, with the present government in charge, we didn't want didn't have any of them stuck in the treaty. What is particular what could be a particular trouble is the disappearance as far as I can see without an equivalent of what was sometimes called the Euro bail directive. There was an arrangement under which a person who was wanted under a European arrest warrant for trial in another country. Had the possibility of serving his bail in his or her member state, instead of having to be exported for the country of trial, where very likely he or she would end up in prison pending trial the fear they flee. That's something extremely helpful for defendants being prosecuted in other countries, though I don't think it was ever greatly used, and that's disappeared without trace, I regret to say, in the treaty. What is in there, as Marcus told us Mark, Mark Martin Steinfeld told us is that all this part of the agreement is written in such a way that it depends on the UK's continuing within the Strasburg arrangements with European human with the convention on human rights. I think he far right at the conservative party, I think there was a move to try and have Brexit to which was to get us out of all that apparatus, once we were out of the EU. And there was certainly some political support for this. I remember reading the headline in a tabloid newspaper when I was waiting to have my car. I was intrigued at Marshall's either the Daily Mail or the sun, and the headline of this to this commentary actually said to break the grip of human rights. The UK must leave the EU. For a lot of populist politicians. It's something else is the enemy something else we should get rid of, and that David Cameron, before the 2015 election was even floating the idea that we would repeal the hated your rights act etc. And some people would read that as and getting out of all of it. It's plain that we can't do that. We want to keep this basically surprisingly favorable criminal justice package. Thank you everybody. I'll say no more for the moment. Well, thank you very much, john and everybody else on this panel covering all of these more detailed aspects of the TCA and I should say aspects that have not got as much of a play in the Twitter sphere blogs and so on as some of the aspects that we spoke about in the first panel so it was great to learn more about this. Let me hand over now to our grand chair Marcus to take us further. And I hand over to Catherine because she's sharing the panel that looks at the EU future relations bill and the constitutional dimension of the TCA. Thank you. Well, thank you very much to the previous speakers. I'd like to turn now to look domestic as opposed to European and see how the TCA has manifested itself through the future relationship bill now act. And I'd like to welcome Professor Allison young professor at public Cambridge and Jack Williams barrister at Moncton chambers and someone who's been very helpful and supportive of the faculty. Allison over to you. Actually, Jack that's going to start first so sorry about that so Jack's going to sorry I couldn't get it to unmute but Jack's going to start first for us. Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to deal with the implementation into domestic law of all that's been spoken about for the past hour or so in about 10 minutes. So I will do my best for that. The EU Relationship Act implements three agreements, the TCA of course, the nuclear agreement and the security agreement. The act also they provide the conduit pipes for the implementation of other so called future relationship agreements envisaged by and in those agreements. Now due to the time I shall cover only three topics but I've written a detailed guide on EU relations rule.com. My first topic is an exploration of the implementation techniques deployed in the act. There are three. First, the act specifically and expressly implements provisions of the agreements in domestic law by enacting new provisions of domestic law. And we see this for example in relation to security trade and transport matters where there are detailed provisions on the face of the act detailed amendments of other acts and also intriguingly detailed amendments to secondary legislation, including retained EU law. Now I say intriguingly there because here you have primary legislation amending what is at least in form secondary legislation. It's usually the other way around, of course. Now it may well mean that those amended provisions of domestic regulations, for example, now have the status of primary legislation. And so our immune from challenge on ordinary grounds of judicial review that are usually available vis-à-vis domestic secondary regulations. Could it be said perhaps that Parliament knew that it was amending secondary legislation, and so intended that those could still be challenged in the regulation that was being amended. Interesting questions for us constitutional lawyers and litigators so you may see my eyes twinkle. The second technique is the provisions of the agreements themselves being given direct applicability in domestic law. Now this is not the same thing and I don't mean the same thing as the concept of direct effect in EU law. In the blog post I did call this a category of direct effectiveness, but I think it's probably easier to use a different phrase so we don't confuse students and each other. So for VAT and social security, for example, you have in sections 22 and 26, the incorporation of two quite lengthy protocols, simply by cross reference essentially. We then have in section 29, the general implementation of other TCA and SOIA provisions, which make provision for the general implementation in domestic law of all other otherwise unimplemented provisions in those two agreements, and I'll return to that in a minute. The third technique of implementation within the act is the giving of powers to ministers to produce domestic implementing regulations. Now there's a long list of those powers within the act but most notably and most broadly in section 31, a very wide power is found in relation to the agreements generally, and I'll return to that momentarily. So that's my first topic looking at the techniques in the act. My second topic is to look at section 29 itself. That's the general implementation provision and I've put it on the slide to help speed matters up. It provides that existing domestic law has effect with modifications as are required for the purposes of implementing in domestic law, the TCA or the SOIA. Now this seems to me to require public authorities, private parties, and most extraordinarily the courts to conduct three exercises in relation to international agreements without any sufficient guidance. Firstly, private parties and the courts have to interpret the relevant provisions of international law. Secondly, they then have to implement those provisions. And thirdly, they then have to modify other domestic law. Now courts don't usually like getting involved in international agreements and understandably so because it involves in measurable exercises of crystal ballgazing, and indeed policy choices at each stage of the analysis. For example, what is the correct interpretation of the agreements? How should those provisions properly or best be implemented in domestic law? And usually there are lots of different ways of potentially doing so. And then how should domestic law otherwise be altered, interpreted or modified? Is this really the courts legislating? And I know Alison will discuss concerns in relation to the separation of powers. Those problems with the Act and Section 29 in particular are exacerbated in circumstances where many of the provisions in the agreements themselves are deliberately vague. Now that was, I guess, in order to secure consensus between the UK and the EU, although maybe the legal scrubbing will resolve that. But moreover, unlike with the European Communities Act, there is no preliminary reference procedure to assist domestic courts. They really are on their own. Despite saying it is extraordinary, which it very much is, I do want to temper some criticism of the section. I think it's important to bear in mind a couple of things. First, in my experience at least, our friends in the government legal department and parliamentary draftsmen don't often, if indeed ever, intend to be constitutionally controversial or sponsor lawyers like myself and litigation. I think that the shift that we see in the Act from the detailed implementations in some areas to more vague and general ones like this provision, it's not so much based on a substantive policy choice, but the practical realities. They got the agreement on Christmas Eve, as we all did, and then a few days later they had to ensure that it was implemented in domestic law. But I don't know that the draftsmen had access to the less controversial provisions on traders licenses, for example, earlier, so they could implement in detailed legislation, and then simply had to ensure that they could do the best of a bad job in the time available for the But more substantively section 29 is limited in substance. Firstly, we have to bear in mind that the conduit itself is materially limited by the very nature of the agreements provisions that are capable of flowing down it in the first place. This ain't EU law. Many of the provisions in the TCA and the soil are inherently limited to the international plane, being concerned with state to state rights and obligations, rather than those of and for individuals, although there are real problems in these two subsidy control provisions, for example. Secondly, the section only applies to provisions that are not implemented by another method via the act. So one would hope, constitutionally at least, and indeed imagine that over time section 29 becomes less and less relevant. Once other mechanisms such as the Henry VIII clauses are utilized. And thirdly, the section 29 conduit does not itself allow for post ratification modifications to the agreements to flow down it. When you look at the definition of relevant day in section 29 it's limited to the treaty as ratified. So that's a whistle stop tour of section 29 and I know Allison will pick up on a few points. The third topic is section 31, which is the third sort of implementation that I discussed at the outset section 31 grants a very wide Henry VIII power to make regulations as are deemed appropriate in order to implement the three agreements and any relevant agreement and also deals with matters again broadly put a rising out of or related to the agreements or again any relevant agreement. Now that rather begs the question what's relevant agreement actually is that's defined as including any supplementing agreement or agreement otherwise in get envisaged by the agreements themselves. So section 32 for a second includes some rather unknowable and undrafted conundrums of potential supplementary agreements. Parliament here has essentially given the government a blank check to implement unknown supplemental agreements in the future. And lastly like all good Henry VIII clauses it can amend acts, including the act itself. So taking a step back here and bearing in mind my audience of predominantly students and academics. I think it's interesting to discuss a trend here in this act and the other Brexit acts and the act regarding COVID. We call these Henry VIII clauses. Now this origin originates from the statute of proclamations which is on the slide. It is stated that the king for the time being with the advice of his council may set forth proclamations that seem necessary. But this shall not be prejudicial shall not be prejudicial to any person's inheritance offices, liberties, goods, chattels or lives. So is Henry VIII really the right label for some of these powers that we are seeing in the EU withdrawal acts and this future Relationship Act. I say that for myself I've begun calling some of them at least Charles the first powers, as I think that's more appropriate. I've put some potentially distinguishing features on the slide in front of you of how to spot a Charles the first power. Firstly it's where the legislation uses the phrase appropriate, not necessary. You'll notice the statute of proclamations on the previous slide referred to necessary. A parliamentary oversight for many of these regulations or scrutiny again is that really similar to the Henry VIII clauses in the statute of proclamations with the advice of his council. Thirdly, I think we've seen in relation to a lot of the retained EU law regulations under the 2018 act that they can and indeed do remove a number of liberties. So again that seems materially different to Henry VIII powers, as we've been calling them. Moreover, their scope is not limited in time. So there's no sunset clause, for example in this section 31 of the Relationship Act, unlike the withdrawal act. And also the sheer volume of them is quite mesmerizing. And so I do wonder whether there's an academic paper to be written by somebody really exploring whether Henry VIII is the right power. So to conclude in what was really a very quick canter through the act. There are lots of interesting questions for litigators and courts, many of which I haven't been able to touch upon in this quick 10 minutes, but I'm sure questions will arise. As I said earlier, there is a twinkle in my eye as a litigator, but perhaps not as a constitutional law theorist. Thank you. Thank you very much, Jack. It will certainly keep you in beer and skittles for the rest of your working life. Can I turn now to Alison. Thank you Catherine and thank you also Jack for giving such a good overview and also for being prepared to stand in for me today if I wasn't well enough to talk to everybody. I've built on Jack's presentation and present sort of four points or four sort of concerns from constitutional lawyers about the EU Future Relationship Act. And this is relating to aspects of the rule of law aspects of the separation of powers aspects of democracy or rather the lack of democratic scrutiny. And also very briefly at the end a few concerns about devolution and where this leaves the state of the union going forward. So with regards to the rule of law, my main concern is as you've probably gathered from Jack's presentation difficulties with the lack of legal certainty and predictability of some of these provisions. You can see this in particular from sections 31 to 33, the main delegated powers to go away and implement these agreements and section 29 the kind of catch all provision for when we haven't got around to implementing it yet, but we want to make sure it's still able to be implemented in practice. One of the main concerns of the delegated powers is not just that they're such broad provisions, but at least to all sorts of issues of legal certainty, because often these are enacted quite quickly. They're often put on statutory instrument websites quite quickly, but they're also often in the form of we're going to overturn this provision or that provision or take away a particular word here. While lawyers are quite used to going away and scrutinizing aspects and having a whole array of agreements in front of them, that isn't necessarily the case for normal and non legally nerds I guess is the best way of putting us who have to go and implement these on a day to day basis. It can be very, very difficult if you're trying to work out what rules are going to apply to you, if you have to go away and start chasing lots and lots of delegated legislation. Primary legislation and other provisions so this could make it very, very difficult in terms of legal certainty of individuals who are going to be affected by these particular provisions with regard to section 29. My concern of legal certainty are escalated mostly because it's very, very difficult to know precisely what section 29 actually means. So we know, first off, we have to think about who is this addressed to, and it just mentions the idea that the law should be given effect with regard to these particular modifications to bring it in line with the agreements. But that can mean we have private individuals trying to work out how to give it effect. It can mean we have frontline administrators, national authorities and eventually courts facing litigation to work out what modifications are required in these particular circumstances. It's also quite difficult to work out precisely what you're required to do under section 29. So it doesn't look like a standard kind of aspect of an interpretation provision. And the reason it doesn't look like an interpretation provision is because we have no reference to things like read, we just have this idea of them having effect. We have this element also of modifications. So there is the ability not just of reading and trying to interpret, but of making changes and modifications to particular provisions to bring them in line with the treaty provisions. But it also doesn't seem to have the same kind of strength as we see with regard to the old form of direct effect and the primacy of directly effective provisions that we saw under EU law. There's no element of taking effect subject to and in fact, this is a kind of catch all default provision where section 29 takes effect subject to all the elements of delegated legislation, for example, that have implemented these particular provisions. So if you have this kind of odd element of it's probably not meant to be displaying, it can allow to have changes, and this could give rise to all sorts of problems of trying to understand what the agreement is, whether it's relevant to make a change because there may or may not be delegated legislation that's implemented it, then you have to work out what you think the modification might be, and this might need to all sorts of aspects of a lack of certainty to work out what is actually going on. I understand why I am same with regard to Jack's comments that these is in a sense necessary given the circumstances we find ourselves in. And the hope is that more regulations will be enacted and certainty will be established over time, but it does mean there is going to be quite a rocky road, and this element transition is we try and work out as we move forward, what these provisions mean and how they're going to be implemented. This also leads me to my second concern about the separation of powers, because there are distinct elements of law making powers coming through here. So again with regard to section 29, this isn't just an idea of reading or giving effect, you're allowing people to make modifications, and these could be made by frontline administrators with or without guidance from higher up as to what these modifications may or may not be, and they can also be made by courts. And because we're looking at domestic law here it could be that courts feel that they're going to be required not just to modify primary and delegated legislation, but the common law in order to make sure it takes this agreement. Now again this might not necessarily be a very wide application because of the terms and content of the agreement, a lot of which won't have an impact of individual rights, but it still concerns with regard to this transfer almost of lawmaking powers and the temporary provision without any kind of aspects of safeguards or certainty as to how those lawmaking powers will be implemented. And that brings us also with regard to separation of powers issues to these Henry VIII or as Jack wants to call them Charles the first provisions. Again they're incredibly broad. There's a constant use of this idea of bringing in measures when it is appropriate, not when it's necessary, of very broadly worded provisions. In my last count there are six Henry VIII clauses within the Future Relations Act in addition to these three general provisions. So you have huge aspects of individuals being delegated, using delegated legislation to go away and modify primary legislation. Now there are limits. So there are within there, for example, it cannot be used to modify the human rights site or the devolution legislation. And there are some restrictions on retroactivity, criminal offences and creating lawmaking powers. But nevertheless, there's a very broad transfer of powers that we've normally seen the hands of the legislature to the executive with affirmative resolution procedure. Of course, that doesn't mean there is the ability to go away and parliamentarians to modify or change these particular provisions. That brings me on to my third concern, which is with regards to democracy. Now, we've already seen concerns as to the speed with which this has been pushed through. So we had an agreement on Boxing Day when most of us would have been hopefully enjoying a Christmas break and it was all enacted through and legislation in one day on the 30th of December. So this is an incredibly quick process with no real ability to have detailed scrutiny. Not only that, but there is no be no detailed parliamentary scrutiny required over the agreement itself. And you can see this in section 36 of the EU Future Relationship Act, which says that the provisions of the constitutional reform and governance site where treaties are meant to be laid before parliament for a period of 21 days, subject to a possibility of a negative resolution procedure, so a vote against them, that has been removed. So these are not needed in order for the CTA to be ratified. So there could be the concern, well surely that's needed because of the speed, but then we can contrast that with what's going on in Europe. This is an agreement we have agreed to provisionally apply. The European Parliament will be scrutinizing the terms of this agreement. So in an old situation where the European Parliament has more democratic aspect of control over this than the Westminster Parliament, let alone the devolved structures, who also will find this having an impact on their lawmaking powers. Not only that, but the EU Future Relationship Committee that is meant to come to an end in a few days time has requested a six month extension. Jacob Rees-Mogg wrote back to say that the government was not willing to grant that, despite specific requests for the extension because the committee wants to question the Chancellor of the Treasury of Lancaster and also others who've said they can't give all the committee because there isn't time. So again you have this element of a lack of detailed democratic scrutiny, which is particularly concerning when you consider how large this agreement is, and all these aspects that are coming out of impacts that people weren't necessarily fully aware of at the time. So that leads me very quickly to my final constitutional concern, which is with regard to devolution. Again, because it was enacted so quickly, there was what a surprise, no time to think about the Sewell Convention. There's no ability for there to be legislative consent measures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. So again, you have a lack of involvement from the devolved legislatures in this process and in future scrutiny provisions. There's also within Schedule 5, various lawmaking powers that are granted to the devolved bodies, where the UK legislation is setting out what the lawmaking procedure is, and the default of the negative resolution procedure with the affirmative in any particular circumstances. And you can add that also to the idea that there's going to be potential future tension because there can be jointly enacted measures and the ability of both the Westminster Parliament and the devolved legislatures to move a motion to ask for that particular provision, that piece of delegated legislation has been enacted to be annulled, and in those circumstances, the Queen by Eldering Council may annull this particular provision. So you can see potential future tensions as there are different motions to annul measures that may or may not be followed. And all of this is quite worrying going forward, particularly as aspects of the agreement come through when you realise just how little detailed democratic scrutiny there has been over this. I think that for me is probably the main constitutional concern. Thank you. Well, thank you very much indeed. And thank you in particular to Alison, who's been so unwell and I'm very grateful to you for coming off your sick bed to talk to us today. I know we have about 15 minutes of questions and a number of you have put questions into the Q&A box. And what I will try to do is direct the questions to the relevant people who have asked them. I wonder if I could start with Kenneth Armstrong to take the question from Stefano Fella about the fit between the part nine of the LPF provisions and panel of experts. In terms of the panel of experts, it looks as if there is an attempt then to have something more specialised, I think, particularly for social and environmental provisions rather than the broader arbitration panels for the dispute settlement more generally. But I think it's part of that kind of degree of specialisation that one also sees within the agreement where not only do you have the partnership council but you also then have the specialised committees within it. And then those specialised committees setting up more specialised panels, which will undertake some of the work here. So I think it really is that the fit is that the point that Catherine you yourself have emphasised between the more general provisions, with dispute resolution and the more general mechanisms for arbitration and something much more specialised in these particular policy areas. That's how I see that, but I don't know if others have a different view. Thank you. I think for what I agree and I think what we do see is there is a difference between the level playing field provisions and the more general compliance with ILO obligations. The first ones get the full treatment so they get article 9192 and 9.3 which are all the panels of experts, but 9.3 allows a feedback into the general dispute remedy mechanism. In particular, INST 24 and 25, which allows for retaliation if there is non-compliance. So actually the level playing field provisions are tougher than you might think or at least potentially tougher than you might think. With respect to the compliance with ILO rules, you only have access to articles 9192, which is the panel of experts, you don't go into the mainstream dispute resolution mechanism. The next question I want to pick up on from Stefano Fellow is about the rather rebarbative nature of the numbering in the texts that we're working with at the moment something that Martin Steinfeld referred to. And we know that the final bit of the deal was done in great speed and we also know that there are inconsistencies that there are provisions which are not to don't follow a numerical sequence. We know that A's and B's are put in presumably because these provisions were agreed late in the day. But it doesn't make for easy reading. I know, Lauren, do you have any views whether the scrubbing might turn into something more readable? In fact, the treaty tells us this in article FINPROV 9, a fairly unique provision where it says agreement shall be drawn up in all the EU languages, including English. By 30th of April 2021, all language versions of the agreement will be subject to a process of final legal revision. That's what's usually called legal scrubbing. But then we have an interesting second paragraph, the language versions resulting from the above process of final legal revision, which will of course include green numbering, shall replace ab initio the signed versions of the agreement and shall be established as authentic and definitive by exchange of diplomatic notes between the parties, which means any legal scrubbing that now goes on will have effect as of the 1st of January 2021. So I think the question is, what is legal scrubbing? Well, obviously it'll do things like fix the paragraph, sorry, the article numbers, which are extremely hard to follow. But I think usually what happens there is harmonization between chapters and so on. Of course, when you start messing with words, you mess with the law. It's interesting to see whether there is any actual change that emerges from legal scrubbing. I mean, the biggest example of this was lined up anyway, it was CETA, the EU-Canada agreement where somewhat famously or notoriously during the legal scrubbing stage a completely new form of investor state dispute settlement was introduced into the text, in other words the EU's investment court system was introduced in the text. And that happened before the agreement actually signed off, so it was a different state. It just goes to show that legal scrubbing and theory come for quite a bit. Thank you very much for that. It makes you think that it's a bit like washing powder adverts, doesn't it, that things become whiter than white in a different form that you might expect. Thank you. The next question, I'll take some from the end as well. Does the EU Future Relationship Act modify the Internal Market Act so as to incorporate the public interest justifications for TBTs available for devolved administrations? Does anyone have any views on that? Kenneth, do you want to have a say, since I think you've done quite a lot of thinking about this? Yeah, except for that little bit there. I think in the end the Internal Market Act is attempts to deal with internal divergences within the UK. Of course, to the extent that there is something external that would then constrain those divergences, then they will limit the potential application of the Internal Market Act. There's an issue there about compliance itself by the devolved with those external obligations. The UK ministers can, under the devolution statutes, require compliance with international obligations. So I think the answer to the question is this triangulation between the limits on divergence, which would be imposed by an external constraint. But then how that external constraint is actually given the effect within domestic law and then its relationship then with the Internal Market Act would be that sort of triangulation. Thank you. Does Jack or Alison, do you want to add anything to that, Jack? I'm just going to add a small footnote. I'm going to assume that there is something which flows down from the international agreement, which is then in conflict with the Internal Market Act. And I obviously have to be careful given my position that I don't give advice one way or another. I genuinely don't know because I haven't read the all 2000 pages in intricate detail and then compared it to the Internal Market Act. Let me start with that assumption. You're then asking whether this later act essentially impliedly overturns or trumps the earlier Internal Market Act. Now what we see in this later act is really very interesting because let me get it up on the screen again. Section 29 tells us that any earlier law has to be read with such modifications as required. The Internal Market Act is an early piece of law so it would prima facie have to be modified in accordance with whatever flows down the TCA and then future relationship agreement act conduit pipe. So the answer then would be yes if there is a conflict. Now, apart from this section, there is the actors entirely silent as to its relationship with other levels of law. Now that's intriguing because, as we know from cases like throwburn, there is the constitutional implied repeal issue by which later acts cannot turn earlier ones where the earlier one is constitutional. Now, I think this provision is expressed enough to override an earlier statute in relation to the Internal Market provision, but is it expressed enough to overturn fundamental common law rights or provisions in the two withdrawal acts of 2018 and 2020. I think there's going to be a lot of litigation as to whether this provision is expressed enough. And of course we are I'm only talking here about section 29. For all of the other provisions there is absolutely no express mention as to what happens if there is a conflict between this act and other acts. And so I think there's going to be a lot of litigation about reply implied repeal and overriding and trumping. So I think that with respect to this and retain the law and relevant separation agreement law in the 2020 act I touch on these issues, teasingly in my very long blog post on the website. But I do so to keep my powder slightly dry in case I'm instructed by claimants or the government because I'm on the AG's panel as well. But I leave the outlet that there is an issue and it's a fascinating question. Thank you very much. The next question I want to have a look at is, I think one that Lauren probably has a view on, which essentially says, if there's no appeal mechanism in the TCA, which there isn't. Doesn't that show case the ineffectiveness of the concept of arbitration. Well, I mean FTAs don't have appeal mechanisms on trade matters. So it's perfectly normal. For that matter the WTO doesn't really have an appeal mechanism at the moment. Work around. And we may see it again, if the Biden administration wants to, let's say unblock it's blocking with the WTO public body. So no, I don't think it shows that. I mean, you know, people are different views on how good appeal mechanisms are, but I don't think it shows that there's any problem in arbitration itself. I think it's probably worth also pointing out that the, the, the pattern of the arbitration tribunal writes an interim report which the parties can offer their comments on of course that's not appeal but at least it gives the parties a chance to say where they've disagreed. And for the panel to have another look at it. And there's another question again I think probably more for Lauren and I am fortunate that there's no name against it, but I think the question is essentially tariff barriers to trade or non tariff barriers which the Prime Minister famously said on Christmas Eve. It didn't exist under the TCA. We are now discovering that they do exist. Sorry, non tariff barriers to trade lawful. Yeah, sure. But the assumption is that that well non tariff barrier I mean it covers a lot of stuff, right. There are non tariff barriers that reflect regulation in the public interest. The governing principle is necessity that you should with some exceptions that you should only be restricting trade in the public interest on various grounds. It's not necessary to do that so you can't just block trade and say, you know, vaguely this is, this is, I think, important but there's no way of demonstrating that it is actually important. Non tariff barriers can, you know, there's definitely showing it comes from economics it's anything is not tariff, it's a terrible term non tariff barrier. But, you know, if we're talking about other things, you know, it could be anything, licensing, whatever. Point is that you try to minimize this as much as possible and there's a general necessity principle involved to try and keep tabs on everything. Thank you. Pantelis has asked a question about essentially are the is the only way to have mutual recognition of professional qualifications going forward through the rather laborious process laid down by the TCA. Can you have individual regulators professional bodies in France for example recognizing the equivalence of the qualifications in the UK. In other words, is this is the only route to go via the TCA route or can backdoor deals essentially be done. I'm pleased to you and I've got a couple of thoughts do you want to say your thoughts first Lauren and then I'll offer you my probably less well informed hand back to you but I will say one thing which is related to this question of EU competence. European Court of Justice has said in the Singapore FTA opinion that mutual recognition forms part of the EU's exclusive competence to regulate matters in trade. That is not how the member states is the member states see mutual recognition as being something that they deal with and it's actually an extremely complicated issue from an EU, EU versus member state constitutional point of view who actually has this competence I think that probably is, you know, the deeper pinnings of an answer to this question I don't have an answer on that I've looked at it and it confused me and I didn't have time to try and solve it, but as far as I can go on that Catherine. I've, I've, I've also looked at this and I have struggled I've struggled from the competence perspective because you could say that the very fact that there is the terribly complicated EU directive on mutual recognition professional qualifications that the EU has occupied the field but on the other hand, it's still the member states who specify what qualifications you need to be a lawyer in particular member state which would tend to suggest that there is at least shared competence if not it's not even if it's not full domestic competence. And if you have a look at the provisions in articles serving 512 and 513 which cover the issue of professional qualification sorry 513 on professional qualifications. It's, it's not very clear and the footnotes aren't very clear either there's two not terribly transparent footnotes, which they start for greater certainty which usually means the opposite. I would say this article should not be construed to prevent the negotiation conclusion of one or more agreements between the parties on the recognition professional qualifications on conditions and requirements different from those provided for in this article which seems to create some space. But then the question is what does parties mean parties is written with a capital P. What does that mean parties is in the UK and the EU, in which case that rules out the possibility of the French and the UK regulator getting together. Bottom line panacea I don't know if you've got a different view is that we just it's, you can argue it both ways. You would say I'd heard and I'm sure I'd read somewhere that this the article serve in 5.13 was deliberately drafted to create the space for the UK French regulator to do a deal. But that's not absolutely I can't see it obviously on the face of the text. So, ladies and gentlemen, I think we are pretty much there. Alison, I've just noticed you said you've come up in the chat do you want to say something else. Yes, thank you Catherine it's just to pick up on some of the points that both john and Martin were mentioning which is to link it into the terms of reference of the independent human rights at review which were released yesterday. And the point is that although they are looking at reviewing the human rights act, the terms of reference at the moment are not looking at withdrawing from the ECHR, which may well pick up on john and Martin's points and it's going to be very difficult to do so now, given the the only real potential future clash is they are looking at extraterritoriality which might end up leading to consequences different when the European Court of Human Rights would say the human rights actually apply outside of the UK territory but other than that, it seems to be the desire to withdraw from the ECHR is not in the current terms of reference. And I think you're muted. Thank you there's quite a lot of noises offices are doing everything from home. I'm just trying to quite so, Martin, do you want to answer Mr El Hussain's question about the ratification of the ECHR and adequate form of human rights protection, and what do we lose out on under the charter. I'm trying to keep tabs of it. The questions that's why I keep looking to my right where was the question Catherine just in the Q&A basically the question is, does is mere ratification of the convention enough. What you mean from, from a, sorry, Jack, go ahead, we're talking from a domestic point of view or not. Jack, what were you going to say first. Well, while you're finding the question answer the charter bit with a with a sneaky footnote really which is that although the act 2018 access the charter is no more. It doesn't say no more in relation to retained case law, which includes a lot of the rights of course that flow through the charter anyway. So I think there is a backdoor entrance for many of the charter principles and case law. And I suppose we could make an argument about citizens protection as well. Yes, also just, I'm sorry, I have been trying to keep tabs with the questions but if we're talking about the one reference seems to be the pre 98 perspective. Okay, it's ratified the convention but it's not incorporated into domestic law. Well, as far as I'm concerned we just revert to the ex parte sim situation. And if we're in the era of common law constitutionalism I don't think that this is going to be a particular problem in terms of the UK's judiciary incorporating the convention by judicial interpretation and strong interpretive obligations. I think that's the essence of the question. On the EU charter issue as well. I mean, of course the charter goes further even than the Human Rights Act in providing a strike down of law, as we've seen a number of cases, even as long as it's within the scope of the law, but they are various rights. I mean the right to data protection itself is the fundamental right but also some of the solidarity rights markets might have a view on this. Even more the solidarity rights are not replicated in the convention of course data protection has a very interesting relationship with article eight and the right to private life so it's less extreme. There's been an issue for the European Economic Area even, which is somehow following all sorts of EU law, paying close attention to the Court of Justice. And yet the Court of Justice case law makes more and more reference to the EU charter, even though the EA countries haven't accepted the EU charter and they tend to then still accept them. Of course that that's not where we're going to be at but it is complex because some of our secondary legislation are notably the data protection now the UK GDPR does incorporate the fundamental right to data protection in many respects but presumably not to the same extent as having the I want to thank you stop there because we have hit three o'clock. I wanted to thank all of my colleagues very warmly for their lively contribution. I want to thank the panelists to the audience to for their very lively participation and their questions and I am sure we will meet again with future events like this but thank you very much indeed and good afternoon.