This lawyer says Michael Gove is correct about Cameron's EU deal not being legally binding

A professor of EU law says that Michael Gove is pretty much right to say that David Cameron's renegotiation package isn't legally binding. Writing for independent fact-checking organisation Full Fact, Steve Peers, who is a professor of EU law and human rights law at the University of Essex, explains that while Cameron's EU deal might be legally binding under international law, this isn't the case under EU law.

Here is a handy chart Full Fact made to explain things.

Screenshot/fullfact.org

What Peers is saying is that six of the seven parts of the EU renegotiation are at risk of being overturned by an EU court.

Legal commentator David Allen Green, who claims to be neutral on the EU referendum, also largely agrees with Peers. He says that each part of the EU deal needs to be put into effect before they can become law and some of them are at a high risk of not being put into effect.

Gove is correct; Number 10 is not.

Nothing in the deal is, by itself, binding. https://t.co/ki2EmR1PIj

- David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) February 24, 2016

For legal geeks, that last tweet means nothing in deal is enforceable in and of itself, regardless of polite fictions of international law.

- David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) February 24, 2016

For completeness: there is, for international lawyers, a theoretical distinction between 'binding' laws and 'enforceable' laws.

- David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) February 24, 2016

Each part of the EU deal needs to be put into effect before becoming law. Some will be, some is unlikely to be.

- David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) February 24, 2016

There are lawyerly points about what you mean by 'binding'. And I am neutral on #Brexit. But IMO Gove is essentially right, not Cameron.

- David Allen Green (@DavidAllenGreen) February 24, 2016