Holger Hestermeyer
@hhesterm
Professor of Int’l & EU Law, Diplomatic Academy Vienna. Past: Prof., founding Director CIGAD at King's College London, specialist adviser House of Lords EU Select Committee, Référendaire CJEU
From the Agreement on the Accession of Spain to Schengen, available at eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...
Also kudos to start the website with this and end it with ‘Ok, let’s capitulate’
Time and again climate change is treated as though it were binary: we cannot prevent it, so ok, it’s there let’s embrace it. That’s entirely wrong: it is a sliding scale. We cannot prevent 1.5 degrees. But maybe 3? Or 5?
What is the domestic policy council? Part of the White House, these have traditionally been its members (no website for the dpc in this admin) /3
The Executive Order through which the US administration imposes its views on history on the Smithsonian - highlighting an essential para. / 1 www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...
The French National Assembly just passed a presumption of legitimate use of their weapons by police officers in its first reading. Here‘s the text. www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/texte...
The Chairperson of the FIFA disciplinary committee published a statement. Peculiarly, it fails to make an argument and could be summarised as ‚we could have done worse and that would have been legal, too‘. media.fifa.com/en/tournamen...
What does that mean? Clearly no UK seat in the institutions, no vote, but expert input in the drafting process - I attach what the Swiss agreed with the EU
The UK-Rwanda Asylum Partnership award is out. The UK won as the Tribunal held by majority decision that the financial arrangements were amended. Link to the award: pcacases.com/web/sendAtta...
Many of the terms seem unproblematic. Some are, however, GIs. Here‘s the full list. Very much enjoy the inclusion of bratwurst. /2
FTA GI wars. The US-Argentina FTA includes provisions against EU & UK GIs /1
Reading @annettedittert.bsky.social ’s new book is both a tremendous joy and brings back PTSD of the Brexit days. Britain is lucky to have such an empathetic explainer
The Trump phone terms and conditions are hilarious. Particularly as you can always just go to a shop and buy an actual phone rather than a conditional opportunity to maybe one day get a phone at the complete discretion of the vendor. trumpmobile.com/device-preor...
Just in case you are interested in knowing any policy of reform that is not "it's the foreigners' fault", here's their "proposal" for the NHS. /1
Somehow I feel it's only going to get worse from the current vote count in Wales.
Here‘s what the Oxford English Dictionary says. ‚Kill‘ is not in there. /2
Much to say about this, but given where we are the most important comment is a reminder that committing war crimes cannot be justified by war crimes committed by the other side
The "deal" between the EU and the US is unusual: it is not a treaty. Accordingly the EP was not involved. It now votes on implementation. @bernd-lange.bsky.social does not attack this procedure as such, though it would be interesting to know whether he thinks this approach as such is acceptable. /2
He actually posted this. I went on twitter to check. Maybe he meant it as a joke?
Worth pointing out that this neutrality enables Switzerland to serve as the protecting power of us interests in Iran.
As a reminder, the requirements of humanitarian intervention according to the UK government (publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/...)
One quick point on legality, as the UK rightly points out Iran attacking countries that did not participate in US action in turn gives rise to self-defence
As in the Iraq war, the assertions by Potus to claim preemptive self-defence end up being false, only this time US intelligence seems to say that as well (source: CNN). It is worthwhile pointing out that that capacity alone would not be sufficient to justify self-defence anyways.
Now, apparently, students need to be reminded that doing their stuff themselves is, actually, theoretically possible. /2
Academia and school are becoming a race between students trying to cheat and professors. You might remember vaguely that the original idea, though, was that students learn something (beyond opening their ai ip, that is). /1
Very much as expected Trump is doing his tariff thing again, now claiming another legal basis. Here's the text of sec. 122 of the Tariff Act of 1974. Note that the text says for up to 150 days. Note also that Trump just ignores that bit. www.theguardian.com/us-news/live...