Today marks the establishment of the House of Lords Interna…

Parliament has never been very good at scrutinising treaties. Bagehot noted the problem in 1872 in the second edition of his seminal work The English Constitution 2/16

I suspect the reasons for this are twofold: first the fact the negotiations of treaties are the responsibility of the Executive under the royal prerogative... 3/16

And second the UK’s dualist legal system - which means that international agreements do not take effect in domestic law until they have been enacted in domestic legislation. 4/16

This sounds like a safeguard. But in fact agreements tend to be signed before any legislation (if it is necessary) is brought before Parliament. So Parliamentarians are left with a rather binary choice... 5/16

The Ponsonby Rule of 1924 established a convention that treaties would be laid before Parliament 21 days before ratification... 6/16

While the question of treaty scrutiny was considered again during the Governance of Britain review (and the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 put parts of the Ponsonby Rule on a statutory footing), Parliament still has no final say on international agreements... 7/16

Treaty scrutiny commenced in the House of Lords in the 2014-15 legislative session, when the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee began to report on agreements. 8/16

But our story really starts with Brexit. In 2017, the Financial Times reported that post Brexit the UK would need to renegotiate 759 treaties. This was an exaggeration, but it meant that responsibility for scrutiny of Brexit related agreements moved to the Lords EU Committee 9/16

The @LordsEUCom started work in Jan 2019 and by the summer had completed 12 reports covering 42 agreements. In June 2019 it published a report: Treaty scrutiny: lessons learned, seeking to draw some conclusions from this experience. 10/16

In April 2020, following a restructure of the Lords European Union Committee, a new International Agreements Sub-Committee was established to consider *all* international agreements negotiated by HMG... 11/16

This Committee, Chaired by Lord Goldsmith QC, published a report on its proposed working practices in July 2020. These working practices are still current and the report can be read here: https://t.co/sqi9uAVCNy
12/16

The report was debated in the House of Lords on 7 September 2020: https://t.co/RfEXkdPLOU
13/16

On the 28 Jan, following an agreement to further restructure the Lords EU Committee, the @HLIntAgreements was established in its own right. 14/16

Our first evidence session will be on the 1 Feb, looking at why the Government has still not ratified the Istanbul Convention (which seeks to prevent violence against women and girls) despite having signed it in 2012
15/16

Our work is only just starting. Do follow it here @HLIntAgreements and on the UK Parliament website. &, if you are interested in treaty scrutiny, you might also want to follow @hhesterm and @Arabella_Law who have both been a great help over the past few years! Wish us luck! 16/16

Today marks the establishment of the House of Lords International Agreements Committee as a freestanding Committee of Parliament. So here is a thread on treaty scrutiny in the House of Lords to celebrate the occasion 1/16/

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