The agreement provided for the transfer of authority over certain policy areas from the British Parliament to a newly created assembly in Belfast, paving the way for paramilitary groups to give up their weapons and join the political process. It has contributed to a sharp decline in violence, and the annual death toll, which peaked at 480 in 1972, has fallen to one figure in recent years. The main issues that Sunningdale omits and which are addressed in the Belfast Agreement are the principle of self-determination, the recognition of both national identities, British-Irish intergovernmental cooperation and legal procedures to make power-sharing compulsory, such as inter-community voting and the D`Hondt system for the appointment of ministers to the executive. [24] [25] Former IRA member and journalist Tommy McKearney says the main difference is the British government`s intention to negotiate a comprehensive deal involving the IRA and the most intransigent trade unionists. [26] With regard to the right to self-determination, two reservations are mentioned by the legal author Austen Morgan. Firstly, the transfer of territory from one State to another must be done through an international agreement between the British and Irish Governments. Secondly, the people of Northern Ireland can no longer achieve a united Ireland alone; they need not only the Irish Government, but also the people of their Irish neighbour to support unity. Morgan also pointed out that, unlike the Ireland Act 1949 and the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, which were drafted under Sunningdale, the 1998 Agreement and the resulting UK legislation expressly provided for the possibility of a united Ireland. [27] This is because the Good Friday Agreement made complicated arrangements between the different parties.
The three strands of the pact created a network of institutions to govern Northern Ireland (Orientation One), to bring together the leaders of Northern Ireland with those of Ireland (Strand Two or North-South Cooperation), and to bring together leaders from across the United Kingdom and Ireland (Strand Three or East-West Cooperation). There are currently more than 140 areas of cross-border cooperation between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, including health services, energy infrastructure and policing. Many experts and political leaders fear that any interruption in this cooperation will undermine confidence in the agreement and thus in the foundations of peace in Northern Ireland. On Friday, April 10, 1998, at 5:30 p.m.m., an American politician named George Mitchell, who chaired the talks, said: “I am pleased to inform you that the two governments and the political parties of Northern Ireland have reached an agreement.” The agreement establishes a framework for the creation and number of institutions in three “parts”. The agreement was reached between the British and Irish governments and eight political parties or groups in Northern Ireland. Three were representative of unionism: the Ulster Unionist Party, which had been celebrating since the beginning of the 20th century. The Progressive Unionist Party (associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)) and the Ulster Democratic Party (the political wing of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)) were linked to loyalist paramilitaries. Two were commonly referred to as nationalists: the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Féin, the Republican Party linked to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. [4] [5] Regardless of these rival traditions, there were two other assembly parties, the Inter-Community Alliance Party and the Northern Ireland Women`s Coalition.
There was also the Labour Coalition. U.S. Senator George J. Mitchell was sent by U.S. President Bill Clinton to chair talks between parties and groups. [6] The agreement comes after many years of complex discussions, proposals and compromises. Many people have made important contributions. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern were at the time leaders of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was chaired by US Special Envoy George Mitchell. [3] The overall result of these problems was to damage trade unionists` confidence in the agreement, which was exploited by the anti-deal DUP, which eventually overtook the pro-deal Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in the 2003 general election.
The UUP had already resigned from the executive power-sharing branch in 2002 following the Stormontgate scandal, in which three men were accused of obtaining information. These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 on the controversial grounds that the persecution would not be “in the public interest”. Immediately afterwards, one of the accused Sinn Féin members, Denis Donaldson, was denounced as a British agent. Northern Ireland`s restored leadership faces difficult challenges in providing basic services and tackling sectarian divisions. One of the most urgent tasks is to improve health services, which fell into crisis after the collapse of local government and have been further burdened by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nurses and other health workers went on strike in December 2019 to protest lower wages than the rest of the UK. Although many health unions have reached agreements with the government on higher wages and other demands in 2020, unions still claim that the system is on an unsustainable path. The agreement provided that Northern Ireland would be part of the United Kingdom and would remain so until a majority of the population of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland otherwise wished. If this happens, the British and Irish governments will be subject to a “binding commitment” to implement this election. In the context of political violence during the unrest, the agreement committed participants to “exclusively democratic and peaceful means of settling disputes over political issues.” This concerned two aspects: northern Irish political parties that supported the agreement were also invited to consider the creation of an independent consultation forum representing civil society with members with expertise in social, cultural, economic and other issues and appointed by both administrations. A framework for the North-South Consultation Forum was agreed in 2002 and in 2006 the Northern Ireland Executive agreed to support its establishment. The old text contains only four articles; it is this short text that is the legal agreement, but it includes the latter agreement in its annexes.
[7] Technically, this envisaged agreement can be distinguished as a multi-party agreement as opposed to the Belfast Agreement itself. [7] In 2010, the signing of the Hillsborough Agreement allowed for the transfer of police and judicial powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which began later that year. .
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