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Under Strand Three of the 1998 Belfast 'Good Friday' Agreement, institutions were set up to promote the 'harmonious and mutually beneficial development' of the 'totality of relationships' between the peoples and governments of Ireland and the UK, including its devolved administrations and Crown Dependencies. According to the text of the 1998 Agreement this 'east‐west' dimension was to have two elements with corresponding institutions: an intergovernmental one reflected in the British‐Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIC) and an interjurisdictional one reflected in the British‐Irish Council (BIC). These Strand Three institutions were designed to provide fora for, respectively, intergovernmental cooperation on 'non‐devolved Northern Ireland matters' in the case of the BIIC and information exchange and cooperation 'on matters of mutual interest within the competence of the relevant Administrations' in the case of the BIC. Nowhere in the 1998 Agreement text is the concept of 'east‐west' used to refer to relations between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Yet, in the wake of Brexit, and in the midst of controversy over the implications of the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland, relations between Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GB–NI) have been newly framed as 'east‐west'. The creation of this new discursive face of 'east‐west' relations marks an important, but little discussed, impact of Brexit on the political and constitutional landscape of the UK and Ireland. Against this backdrop, this article considers the impacts of Brexit, and the Protocol, on three faces of 'east‐west' relations—the BIIC, the BIC and, newly, GB–NI—and discusses their implications for the future of Strand 3 institutions and the 'totality of relationships' they represent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the UK–EU Withdrawal Agreement as a 'flexible and imaginative' response to the problems that Brexit has created for the island of Ireland. It looks at the purpose of the Protocol and its origins, noting the reasons why flexibility was required from both sides. It then considers the ways in which precariousness from its conception has been demonstrated in its first year of operation. This focuses upon four main areas: implementation, dynamic alignment, the democratic consent vote, and the UK–EU relationship. Its core argument is the 'flexibility' that the Protocol requires also means a certain degree of ambiguity. In the absence of a stable UK–EU relationship, this precariousness could exacerbate the difficulties of meeting the policy challenges that surround the Protocol for Northern Ireland, the UK, Ireland and the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2016 Brexit referendum a series of crises has gripped Northern Ireland's politics. This has had a destabilising effect across society, which has arguably been felt most acutely by political unionism. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (B/GFA) of 1998 created a series of institutions to deal with political conflict in Northern Ireland, manage cross‐border cooperation and normalise relations between the UK and Ireland. However, many aspects of it have been sparingly and ineffectually deployed, most notably the second and third strands dealing with north/south and east/west relations respectively. In this article, the authors argue that regular use of the institutional arrangements created by the Agreement would help to deal with the challenges currently facing Northern Ireland and help address unionist anxieties over the Protocol. Use of the North‐South Ministerial Council (NSMC), the British Irish Council (BIC) and the British‐Irish Intergovernmental Conference (BIIGC) should be prioritised. The unresolved issues arising from Brexit require a recommitment to the intergovernmental logic at the heart of the 1998 Agreement, despite the obstacles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many people, trade is about goods and so the most momentous aspect of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) is the provisions on goods. This article looks at the provisions on the trade in goods under the TCA and compares them with those on the Customs Union and the Single Market for goods under EU law (which still apply to Northern Ireland under the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol). It argues that the approach to the movement of goods in the TCA has much more in common with the World Trade Organization's (WTO) provisions on goods, on which the TCA draws heavily, than EU law. This shift to a 'WTO plus' approach (as opposed to an 'EU law minus') is because the UK government considered that the Brexit vote gave a green light for a total break with the EU's rules. Using four examples (the principle of non‐discrimination; the significance of a '0, 0' agreement; regulatory barriers to trade; and mutual recognition), this article shows just how close the TCA Title on Trade in Goods is to WTO law – and how far it is from EU law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]