On Walzer's hermeneutics of justice, Gadamer's criterion of openness and northern Ireland's Belfast agreement

Abstract

In this article, I draw on the work of Michael Walzer and Hans‐Georg Gadamer to develop a hermeneutic, or interpretative, approach to the question of a just constitutional settlement for Northern Ireland. I move away from Walzer's ‘shared meanings’ approach to questions of justice, and instead focus on different unionist and nationalist interpretations of the principle of self‐determination. I argue that Gadamer's hermeneutic criterion of openness can be used to adjudicate between various older and contemporary unionist and nationalist interpretations of this principle. I also analyse Northern Ireland's Belfast Agreement as an attempt to accommodate different, legitimate unionist and nationalist interpretations of the principle of self‐determination.