Saturday, June 25, 2016

Brexit and military justice reform

B+1. All over the world, people are trying to gauge the potential consequences of Britain's departure from the European Union. Some of this examination is urgent, some less so. Are there consequences for military justice (including reform)? Without suggesting a Doomsday scenario, here are some initial questions:
  • If Brexit leads to further secessions, will states that have not felt a need to maintain large standing military establishments have to rethink those policies (e.g., budgets, conscription, foreign operations), and will that spark a renewal of interest in military justice systems in countries that have largely abandoned classic separate military justice systems.
  • If so, what will be the shape of renewed/revived European military justice systems?
  • What will be the impact outside Europe if there is a shift in the current European military justice paradigm?
  • If Scotland secedes from the UK and remains in the EU, will it revive a Scottish army, and if it does, what will be the arrangements for the administration of military justice?
  • Might the same impulse(s) that led to Brexit also lead Britain (or what is left of it after Scottish secession) to abandon adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights and submission to the European Court of Human Rights? If so, will that in turn spark retrograde changes in British military justice?
  • If Brexit and its fallout embolden non-Western European powers to increase aggressive military policies, what effect, if any, might that have on efforts to reform the U.S. military justice system (e.g., abandonment of commander-centric disposition authority for major offenses)?
Comments on any or all of these questions are invited. Real names only, please.

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