By Dr Eirik Bjorge, Senior Lecturer in Public International Law (University of Bristol Law School).*
The Supreme Court in Miller set out the model that ‘the dualist system is a necessary corollary of Parliamentary sovereignty’ (para 57), or in the words of Campbell McLachlan in his admirable Foreign Relations Law, cited by the Supreme Court:
If treaties have no effect within domestic law, Parliament’s legislative supremacy within its own polity is secure. If the executive must always seek the sanction of Parliament in the event that a proposed action on the international plane will require domestic implementation, parliamentary sovereignty is reinforced at the very point at which the legislative power is engaged (para 5.20).
As the Court said, this passage ‘neatly summarises’ the position: but, beyond the neatness of summarization, does it correctly capture the constitutional position? (more…)