Derrick Wyatt, KC

Derrick Wyatt, KC,  has been a Fellow of St. Edmund Hall since 1978, received the title of Professor in 1996, and retired in 2009.

His teaching included EU law, constitutional law, administrative law, and public international law. He was Visiting Professor of Law at Oxford 2009 - 2014, teaching the law of the EU’s internal market.

He has published numerous articles and contributions to books, served on editorial committees and boards and he co-authored Wyatt and Dashwood's European Union Law, in its various editions, the latest being its 6th edition (Hart Publishing 2011).

He took a J.D. at the University of Chicago (1971), and was a Visiting Professor at Florida State University College of Law in 1986. He has retained an interest in the US Constitution and US Politics.

He practised (Queen's Counsel 1993) from Brick Court Chambers until 2018, specialising in litigation before the European Court of Justice and the EU General Court in Luxembourg, and in giving legal advice to businesses and governments. His practice involved aspects of EU law, public international law, and constitutional law. He appeared in numerous cases before the European Courts in Luxembourg and represented and/or advised businesses in the UK, Ireland, the USA and Germany, and the Governments of the UK, Northern Ireland, and Cyprus. Cases involved the EU internal market, environmental and climate change issues, and international sanctions against the regimes in Iran and Syria.

Since the Brexit referendum, he has briefed the media, lawyers and financial service providers on Brexit and negotiations between the UK and the EU. He has appeared before UK Parliamentary Committees giving evidence on Brexit related issues, including the consequences of a "no-deal", and parliamentary scrutiny of the negotiation of trade agreements.

He was until recently a member of the International Academic Council of the Fide Fundación. Fide is the leading legal-economic think-tank in Spain, committed to involving civil society in the discussion of major legal-economic-scientific developments; it is independent and non-partisan.

His blogs on law and policy issues have been published by think-tanks UK in a Changing Europe and Fide Fundación, as well as by the London School of Economics (LSE blogs), and the news and comment platforms Brussels Signal, Byline Times and Politico. Blogs have covered the lawmaking role of judges and their right to speak out to justify that role, Climate Change issues, Scottish independence, whether the UK should rejoin the EU, or seek a "Norway" solution, the development of the European Political Community, and issues for EU/European defence arising out of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

He publishes Derrick Wyatt's Law and Politics Blog on derrickwyatt.substack.com. It contains original blogs along with re-posts of blogs already published by think-tanks or other platforms. There are also social media accounts with the handles @blogwyatt.bsky.social and @BlogWyatt

Recent blogs include  Macron’s wrong to think France’s nuclear umbrella can protect Europe (Politico),  A Bad Deal with Trump on Ukraine could at least postpone  a worse one with Putin (Politico), Citizens’ Assemblies Could Wake Keir Starmer up to Reversing Brexit (Byline Times), and Elon Musk Must Take a Net-Zero Approach to Violent Hate Speech to Save his Businesses and Credibility (Byline Times).