The legal body of ‘Post-Brexit Law’ that has been the result of years of turbulent negotiations, consist firstly of the Withdrawal Agreement – which contains the Northern Ireland Protocol/ Windsor Framework – and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. It contains innovative features, such as the ‘level-playing field provisions’, which seek to safeguard fair competition between the EU and UK. It also holds gaps; for example those related to security and defence cooperation. This results in a complex institutional architecture, all of which are in need of analysis. Secondly, due to Brexit, hundreds of international agreements concluded by the EU with external partners no longer apply to the UK. However, the UK is now free to conclude international agreements on its own, from which it was barred before due to the EU’s exclusive competences. This concerns especially trade policy, for which Brexiteers have predicted a new ‘golden age’ of lucrative deals for the UK. Here, the project analyses the UK’s efforts to put in place replacements for the EU’s trade agreement and compares the EU’s and UK’s trade policies, which are now conducted in parallel and, to some extent, in competition with each other. This project then looks at the international legal impact of these developments.

Within the LUC’s global challenge of Peace and Justice, Sustainability and Prosperity this research project has so far generated up ten journal articles, five book chapters and ten appearances in national and international media. Read these academic publications here and find op-eds here. To date, the project has received funding from the Fulbright-Schuman Programme, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) and Leiden Global Interactions.

• ‘The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: forging partnership or managing rivalry?’, with R.A. Wessel, in: A. Łazowski and A. Cygan (eds.), Research Handbook on Legal Aspects of Brexit (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2022), pp. 122-147
• ‘Enforcement and Supervision’, in: F. Fabbrini (ed.), The Law & Politics of Brexit – Volume IV: The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2022), pp. 211-230
• ‘De handels- en samenwerkingsovereenkomst tussen de EU en het VK: veertienhonderd bladzijden schadebeperking’, Nederlands Juristenblad, Vol. 96, No. 5 (2021), pp. 350-357 (in Dutch)
• ‘Brexit and the 'Great British Trade-Off': The Future of the EU’s and the UK’s External Treaty Relations’, in: W.T. Douma et al. (eds.), The Evolving Nature of EU External Relations Law (T.M.C. Asser Press, 2021), pp. 277-291
• ‘Brexit, the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, and Global Treaty (Re-)Negotiations’, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 114, No. 3 (2020), pp. 443-462
• ‘Brexit means Brexit? De stand van zaken na de uittreding’, with R.A. Wessel, SEW–Tijdschrift voor Europees en economisch recht, No. 6 (2020), pp. 258-264 (in Dutch)
• ‘EU External Relations Law and Brexit: 'When Pluto was a planet'', Europe and the World: A Law Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2020), pp. 1-18
• ‘Decision-Making and Dispute Settlement’, in: F. Fabbrini (ed.), The Law & Politics of Brexit – Volume II: The Withdrawal Agreement (Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 191-210
• ‘The New Transatlantic Trigonometry: “Brexit” and Europe’s Treaty Relations with the United States’, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, Vol. 40, No. 1 (2018), pp. 1-81
• ‘The EU’s Global Strategy, Brexit and 'America First'', European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2018), pp. 343-364

• Op-ed in Het Parool, ‘De consument zit straks in de vuurlinie van een post-brexithandelsoorlog’, 27 October 2021 (in Dutch)
• Commentary for De Hofvijver, ‘De post-Brexit relatie tussen het VK en de EU: Van lidstaat tot derde land, van partner tot rivaal’, 21 March 2021 (in Dutch)
• Live interview for Al Jazeera on the new EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, 24 December 2020
• Interviewed for The Irish Times, ‘Brussels becomes increasingly jaded with UK’s Brexit drama’, 6 May 2020
• Interviewed for Courtroom News Service, ‘United Kingdom to Stay Tied to EU Court in 2020’, 30 January 2020
• Interview for BBC World Service, ‘Newsday’, on Brexit negotiations, the Irish border issue and ongoing Dutch preparations, 20 July 2018
• Op-ed in Volkskrant, ‘Trump in Brexitland: de speciale, historische relatie eindigt waar “America First” begint’, 12 July 2018 (in Dutch)