Lord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Cormack's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 12 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I can confirm all of that. It is a recognised, long established principle of public international law that when a part of a state secedes it inherits obligations under treaties but it has to apply to join international organisations. When the Soviet Union broke up, that applied to Ukraine, Belarus and others. When India broke up, it applied to Pakistan and then to Bangladesh, so this is a well established principle.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, do we know yet precisely what legal advice the Scottish Government took on this issue?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we do not know. That is one of the things that everyone is longing to discover.