Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
12 - What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Europe endless – Kraftwerk
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from the Past? The 1954 Association Agreement between the UK and the European Coal and Steel Community
- 2 From the European Free Trade Association to the European Economic Community and the European Economic Area: Portugal’s Post-Second World War Path
- 3 Norway and the European Economic Area: Why the Most Comprehensive Trade Agreement Ever Negotiated Is Not Good Enough
- 4 Switzerland: Striking Hard Bargains with Soft Edges
- 5 The Customs Union between Turkey and the European Union
- 6 Ukraine: The Association Agreement Model
- 7 Canada and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
- 8 The World Trade Organization Model
- 9 “Singapore on the Thames”
- 10 The United Kingdom and the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership
- 11 Australia (and New Zealand) after the 1973 “Great Betrayal”
- 12 What Future for the Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and Gibraltar?
- 13 The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: A Flexible and Imaginative Solution for the Unique Circumstances on the Island of Ireland?
- 14 EU–UK Security Relations after Brexit
- 15 The UK Still In Europe? Is the UK’s Membership of the Council of Europe In Doubt?
- Afterword
- Index
Summary
BACKGROUND
The United Kingdom is unique in the United Nations in retaining sovereignty over – and international responsibility for – more than 20 dependent territories. These are spread around the globe, in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans and in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas. All, except Gibraltar, are islands. Each has its own constitution and individual relationship with the UK. All enjoy substantial internal legislative, executive and judicial autonomy, with ultimate sovereignty and responsibility for international relations3 and defence being retained by the UK. Most of these territories have been possessions of the British Crown for hundreds of years. In some cases (Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands), UK sovereignty is contested. The relationship between the Channel Islands and England dates back to 1204, when King John withdrew English troops from Normandy. The Isle of Man came under the English Crown in 1399.
When the UK joined the European Community (EC) in 1973, all the UK territories were consulted and opted for different forms of very limited association with the Communities. Unlike the legal situation of the UK itself as an EU member state, which evolved almost beyond recognition over 46 years, the rules applying to the UK's dependencies remained unchanged in a “time warp” until Brexit in 2020. In the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the EU, with the exception of Gibraltar, none of the 510,000 inhabitants of the other territories were allowed to vote. Nonetheless, the legal relationship between the territories and the EU ended, as with that of the UK itself, on 31 January 2020.
Today, almost four years after the referendum and in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic that will reshape international relations, the territories – like the UK itself – suffer from political, economic and legal uncertainty. They are all, without doubt, “fragile ships floating in a storm-tossed sea”.
Because of their sui generis, fragmentary and outdated nature, none of the treaty arrangements made for the UK dependencies in 1973 could serve as a model for the UK's future relationship with the EU after 2020.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Outside the EUOptions for Britain, pp. 145 - 162Publisher: Agenda PublishingPrint publication year: 2020