The impact and consequences of Brexit on acquired rights of EU citizens living in the UK and British citizens living in the EU-27

Please note: Each EPRS Study is assigned a DOI (digital object identifier), which is a safe and long term way of ensuring a hyperlink to the full text of this report. However, when ESO creates this record, on occasion the DOI still has not been activated by the EU Bookshop. If you find the source url hyperlink does not work please use the alternative location hyperlink listed as a related url.On the request of the AFCO Committee, the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs commissioned this study, which examines the concept of acquired (or ‘vested’) rights in public international law, analyses the gradual establishment and evolution of these rights and draws from case law as well as other precedents in order to establish the validity and force of acquired rights in customary and conventional international law. It also analyses the protection of such rights within the EU legal order, and examines the citizenship rights that will have to be taken into account during the UK withdrawal negotiations as well as their potential permanence in the EU and UK legal orders after Brexit. It concludes with an assessment on the legal force of acquired rights after Brexit and recommendations for their treatment during and after the withdrawal negotiations.

• Primary Source

European Parliament: Directorate-General for Internal Policies of the Union: Publications available via the EU Bookshop http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/directorate-general-for-internal-policies-of-the-union-cbf.cKABstF7wAAAEjwYYY4e5K/

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: Study, April 2017: The impact and consequences of Brexit on acquired rights of EU citizens living in the UK and British citizens living in the EU-27 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2017/583135/IPOL_STU(2017)583135_EN.pdf

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