Abstract
This article examines the Brexit process through the anthropological lens of liminality. As a concept that explains the impact of change and transformation on human experience, it is argued that liminality is an especially valuable perspective to understand better the phenomenon of Brexit, particularly as to how this might impact on the regulation of human health research. A central feature of liminality is its attention to process; that is, the identification of milestone thresholds within a series of events involving change. More particularly, liminality has a degree of predictive power about certain influencing factors on transformational processes and their outcomes. In this regard, the pivotal role of law is subjected to close scrutiny in the period leading up to March 29, 2018: one year before the so-called Brexit Day. The European Union (EU) (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017 was the threshold trigger for the Brexit process, while the EU Withdrawal Bill 2017–2019 has as its objective the shepherding through of the United Kingdom in its departure from the EU. The argument is made that these events are liminal moments in European legal and human history; moreover, lessons from history are used to identify the specific implications for human health research as an area of human activity that will be profoundly impacted by the Brexit process. This analysis also provides a means to reflect on the broader implications of what a disruptive process such as Brexit means for law generally.
Highlights
How do we make sense of chaos? How do we navigate our way through—and out of— one of the most complex legal orders ever devised in human history? More how can we effectively find our way through—and potentially out of—one of the most complex and yet highest-quality human health regulation regimes on the globe? These are the questions that sit at the heart of this article
This article has offered the perspective of liminality to suggest that it is possible to anticipate and prepare for possible features that will emerge from this uncertain Brexit process as a quintessential liminal moment in (European) human history
Liminality is typified by mimetic behavior, and while this explains the wholesale adoption of European Union (EU) law into domestic law by the EU Withdrawal Bill 2017, this particular legislative move signally fails to reflect the processual element in these dynamics
Summary
How do we make sense of chaos? How do we navigate our way through—and out of— one of the most complex legal orders ever devised in human history? More how can we effectively find our way through—and potentially out of—one of the most complex and yet highest-quality human health regulation regimes on the globe? These are the questions that sit at the heart of this article. Concerns about an extended period of liminality are compounded when we consider that a key provision of the agreed phase 1 negotiations related to the ongoing jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU): The Agreement should establish a mechanism enabling UK courts or tribunals to decide, having had due regard to whether relevant case-law exists, to ask the CJEU questions of interpretation of those rights where they consider that a CJEU ruling on the question is necessary for the UK court or tribunal to be able to give judgment in a case before it This mechanism should be available for UK courts or tribunals for litigation brought within 8 years from the date of application of the citizens’ rights Part.[45]. That rather than causing chaos within EU27 leading to further disintegration, Brexit is promoting better integration.[47] And, when we begin to examine the myriad areas where EU law has reach into member state laws, including the multiple institutions, governance and regulatory mechanisms, reporting processes, and Withdrawal from the European Union, December 8, 2017, at para 38. More recently, Szakolczai (2017), Liminality and Experience: Structuring Transitory Situations and Transformative Events
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