King’s Speech

Lord Morrow Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, we live at a time of greater international uncertainty than we have known for many years. That places special importance on upholding the norms and assumptions of international society, informed by international law, in which the bearers of international personality are sovereign states. Indeed, in the absence of a global Executive, the well-being of that society depends on our protecting the norms and conventions that constitute international relations. At the heart of these is the doctrine of recognition and the principle that international relations depend on two states recognising each other. This amounts to each acknowledging and respecting the right of the other to govern itself across the extent of its territory. That is foundational, because it is only when two sovereign states afford each other their reciprocal dignity that international relations can really happen.

To be sure, there are other important doctrines, such as pacta sunt servanda, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. Agreements must be kept, but we cannot collapse international society into that principle abstracted from the other conventions that make international agreements a possibility—otherwise, a treaty to promote slavery or disfranchisement would be inviolable, because it would rest on an agreement between states. In truth, the operational impact and importance of pacta sunt servanda in treaty-making assume the basic integrity of the actors—sovereign states—between which those agreements are reached. If we wish to uphold the integrity of the international society of states that is definitive of world order, and on which international law is based, we have to remember that valid treaties are not just whatever two parties agree; they are agreements made in a context that respects the foundational norms or assumption on the basis of which the peace and stability of the international area depend.

For example, it states quite plainly in the UN Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in Accordance with the Charter of the United Nations:

“Every State has an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another State”.


It also states:

“Nothing … shall be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and independent States … Every State shall refrain from any action aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of any other State or country”.


Lest there should be any doubt about the importance of these principles, the declaration also affirms:

“The principles of the Charter which are embodied in this Declaration constitute basic principles of international law, and consequently appeals to all States to be guided by these principles in their international conduct and to develop their mutual relations on the basis of the strict observance of these principles”,


and:

“Where obligations arising under international agreements are in conflict with the obligations of Members of the United Nations under the Charter of the United Nations, the obligations under the Charter shall prevail”.


One of the most obvious ways in which a state, A, or a group of states, AB, can act in violation of the territorial integrity of another state, C, is to apply pressure for the right to make some of the laws over part of C, and to insist on the imposition of a customs border across C at the point at which their law ceases to have effect and the laws of C alone obtain. This is what the 27 member states of the European Union have decided to do to the United Kingdom, imposing laws made by a legislature in which we are not represented and imposing a border cutting the country in two and requiring the construction of border control posts for its enforcement.

Some might say that this is acceptable because the Parliament of the United Kingdom has agreed to embrace this humiliation entailed in the violation of its territorial integrity. However, that does not change the fact that Parliament would never have considered such an outcome had the EU not proposed it and thereby sought to disrupt the national unity and territorial integrity of our country. Nor does it make Parliament’s decision to acquiesce to this pressure anything other than a serious mistake, setting an unsettling precedent for international society that is quite unbecoming of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

In contemplating this, I greatly rejoice that no Parliament can bind its successors. I welcome the sentence in the King’s Speech about the union. We urgently need legislation to fully restore Article 6 of the Act of Union.