Professor Graham Butler:

On the question about the primacy of international law, I agree entirely with Professor Koutrakos with regard to the member states wanting to fulfil obligations under both. The question here is how a member state does that when it has conferred competence on an international organisation, albeit a very special one, and that international organisation is potentially not fulfilling its obligations under international law. Rather than specifically answer the question, I will put myself in the shoes of the European Commission and ask what it would think about an individual member state trying to exercise trade competence. Another way of looking at this Bill is the State trying to activate its own unilateral trade policy for a particular purpose. Is it in the interests of the common commercial policy as a whole, notwithstanding the underlying substantive reasons, as good as they might be in this scenario, that member states are going it alone in this on the basis of the EU not acting? That is where I have my doubts and therefore, we are talking about the use of the potential exception as opposed to the existence of it.