Treaties may be amended by agreement between the parties. Bilateral treaties can be amended more easily than multilateral treaties. Bilateral treaties will sometimes include a provision on amendment but, in the absence of that, the parties will often simply proceed to amend the treaty by means of an exchange of notes, with provision concerning the entry into force of the amendment. Multilateral treaties too will often have express provision specifying amendment procedures. The chapter analyses various examples of these, including the use of supplementary treaties or protocols. If there is no such provision, residual rules are provided by Articles 40 and 41 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

The implementation of the Protocol is governed by three UK–EU institutions established by the WA. The Joint Committee (JC) is to oversee the implementation and application of the WA and the Protocol. The Specialised Committee on the Implementation of the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland (INISC) is to facilitate and administer the Protocol. The Joint Consultative Working Group (JCWG) is for the ‘exchange of information’ and ‘mutual consultation’ between the UK and EU, which then informs the work of the INISC. The rules of procedure for the JC and all six Specialised Committees are set out in Annex VIII of the WA. Each body comprises and is co-chaired by representatives from the EU Commission and the UK government. Aside from governance, they are important mechanisms for formal and informal dialogue between the two sides. This chapter summarizes the constitution, remit and operation of each of them, as set out in the WA and as they operated in practice during the first months of their establishment.

After the failure of the first Atlantic cable, proponents of oceanic submarine telegraphy sought to parry claims that the task they had attempted was simply impossible and to argue that it instead resulted from a series of correctable errors. Their first step was to pin as much blame as they could on Wildman Whitehouse while separating his practices from those of proper electrical scientists and engineers. The Atlantic Telegraph Company then teamed with the British government to establish a Joint Committee to investigate how such disasters might be avoided in the future. In 1861 the committee issued a massive Report that identified the rationalization of methods and standardization of materials as keys to bringing order and reliability to an industry that had hitherto lacked both. The Joint Committee Report exemplified the power of expertise backed by official authority, and it soon became the bible of British cable practice as the idiosyncratic methods of Whitehouse and other cable amateurs gave way to William Thomson and Latimer Clark’s emphasis on precise and standardized measurement. Guided by this new measurement-based approach to telegraph engineering, the Atlantic cable project was resurrected and would finally succeed in 1866.