LETTER : Commonwealth versus Europe

From Mr Bernard Noble

Sir: As one long a servant of international justice, I am appalled by the manner in which discussion of the Grand Banks fisheries dispute is, in Britain, being hijacked into the maelstrom of the EU debate. Certainly, it contains fascinating issues for the constitutional lawyer, but the piling of one extreme hypothesis on another is inimical to common sense.

I wonder, more particularly, what useful purpose can be served by dramatising the Queen's dual position, as Rupert A. H. Barnes has done (Letters, 14 March). Mr Barnes could not expect the royal tie, once embroiled in the debate, to be dealt with solely on his own literalist terms or invoked against the EU without needlessly destructive results.

The limits of its efficacy would soon be apparent, and that would simply strengthen the hands of the many in Canada who see no point in retaining it; the worst course for those who value it would be to help them prove it anachronistic.

Mr Barnes says that the UK and Canada "are entirely autonomous politically but are otherwise inseparable".What is there in this "otherwise" that can possibly ease a politico-legal dispute? Can it really be, as he implies, a disposition to treat our European treaty-partners as "foreigners with whom we have mere trade relations"?

Yours faithfully,

BERNARD NOBLE

Deputy-Registrar (retd)

International Court of Justice

The Hague, Netherlands

14 March