Everything about The Belfast Agreement totally explained
The
Belfast Agreement , alternatively and widely known as the
Good Friday Agreement, and occasionally as the
Stormont Agreement was a major political development in the
Northern Ireland peace process. It was signed in
Belfast on
10 April 1998 (
Good Friday) by the
British and
Irish governments and endorsed by most
Northern Ireland political parties. The
accord was endorsed by the voters of Northern Ireland and
the Republic of Ireland in separate referenda on
23 May 1998. The
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the only large party that opposed the Agreement.
Provisions
- The principle that the constitutional future of Northern Ireland should be determined by the majority vote of its citizens.
- One commitment by all parties to use "exclusively peaceful and democratic means".
- The establishment of a Northern Ireland Assembly with devolved legislative powers.
- Introduction of the cross-community principle for any major decision taken by the Assembly.
- Creation of a 'power-sharing' Northern Ireland Executive, using the D'Hondt method to allocate Ministries proportionally to the main parties.
- Creation of a North-South Ministerial Council and North-South Implementation Bodies to bring about cross-border cooperation in policy and programmes on a number of issues.
- Creation of a British-Irish Inter-governmental Conference (replacing the former English-Irish Conference, established by the Anglo-Irish Agreement), which give a consulting role to Republic of Ireland concerning matters not devolved.
- Establishment of a British-Irish Council, composed of representatives from the governments of Ireland, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, to discuss areas of common concern.
- Conditional early release within two years of paramilitary members belonging to organisations observing a ceasefire.
- Establishment of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission.
- A two year target for decommissioning of paramilitary weapons.
- The repealing of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 by the British Parliament. (External Link
)
- The abolition of Ireland's territorial claim to Northern Ireland via the modification of Articles 2 and 3 of its constitution. As a result, the territorial claim which had subsisted since 29 December 1937 was dropped on 2 December 1999.
- New legislation for Northern Ireland on policing, human rights and equality.
- Normalisation of security measures, for example closure of redundant army bases.
- Police reform, undertaken by the Patten Commission (1998–1999).
- Equality of social, economic and cultural rights of all ethnic communities for example official recognition of the Irish and Ulster-Scots languages as equal to English.
- Recognition of the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose.
- Confirmation that the right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and wouldn't be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland.
The Agreement also marked the end of a dispute between the two states over the
names of their respective states: the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and
Ireland. Vague wording of some of the provisions (described as "constructive ambiguity"), which helped ensure acceptance of the agreement at the time, served to postpone debate on some of the more contentious issues — most notably paramilitary decommissioning, police reform and normalisation. A date of May 2000 was set for total disarming of all paramilitary groups. This wasn't achieved and delayed the establishment of the Assembly and Executive, because one of the four main parties in the Assembly —
Sinn Féin — was "inextricably linked" to the largest paramilitary group, the
Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), and
unionists refused to share power with this party, while the PIRA remained armed.
The Assembly and Executive were eventually established in December 1999 on the understanding that decommissioning would begin immediately, but were suspended within two months due to lack of progress, before being re-established in May 2000 as Provisional IRA decommissioning eventually began. Aside from the decommissioning issue, however, ongoing paramilitary activity (albeit relatively low level compared to the past) by the Provisional Irish Republican Army — for example, arms importations, smuggling, organised crime, "punishment beatings", intelligence-gathering and rioting — was also a stumbling block. The loyalist paramilitaries also continued similar activity although as they were not represented by a significant political party, their position was less central to political change.
The overall result of these problems was to damage confidence among unionists in the Agreement, which was exploited by the anti-Agreement DUP which eventually defeated the pro-Agreement
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in the 2003 Assembly election. The UUP had already resigned from the power-sharing Executive in 2002 following arrests of
Sinn Féin personnel on charges of gathering intelligence for use by terrorists. (These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 on the controversial grounds that pursual wouldn't be "in the public interest". Immediately afterwards, one of the accused Provisional Sinn Féin members,
Denis Donaldson was exposed as a British agent.)
In 2004, negotiations were held between the two governments, the DUP, and Sinn Féin on an agreement to re-establish the institutions. These talks failed, but a document published by the governments detailing changes to the Belfast Agreement became known as the '
Comprehensive Agreement'. On
26 September 2005, however, it was announced that the Provisional Irish Republican Army had completely decommissioned its arsenal of weapons and "put them beyond use". Nonetheless, many
unionists, most notably the DUP, remained sceptical and agreement on how to restore the power-sharing assembly still hadn't been reached as of July 2006. Of the loyalist paramilitaries, only the
Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) had decommissioned any weapons
(External Link).
As of summer 2007, a Power Sharing Executive has been established to govern Northern Ireland. The current government of Northern Ireland consists of the DUP and Sinn Féin, with the Rev. Dr.
Ian Paisley of the DUP as First Minister and
Martin McGuiness of Sinn Féin as Deputy First Minister. Although Dr. Paisley is the head of the government, he and Martin McGuiness hold equal powers within the Northern Ireland Assembly government.
Referenda
In May 1998, there were separate referenda in Northern Ireland and
Ireland to endorse the Belfast Agreement. The "No" vote in Northern Ireland came predominantly from unionists opposed to perceived concessions being made to
nationalists and
republicans. However,
opinion polls suggest a slim majority of unionists may have voted "Yes". In the
Republic of Ireland the electorate voted upon the
nineteenth amendment to the Constitution of Ireland. This amendment both permitted the state to comply with the Belfast Agreement and provided for the removal of the 'territorial claim' contained in Articles 2 and 3.
Ireland voted upon the
Amsterdam Treaty on the same day. The results of the two simultaneous referenda on the Belfast Agreement were as follows:
Further Information
Get more info on 'Belfast Agreement'.
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