Belfast Agreement Research Articles

Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland by Jennifer Curtis (review)

Reviewed by: Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland by Jennifer Curtis Timothy J. White (bio) Jennifer Curtis, Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), ISBN 978-0-8122-4619-3, 283 pages. Jennifer Curtis, in Human Rights as War by Other Means: Peace Politics in Northern Ireland offers an important and innovative analysis of the peace process [End Page 561] in Northern Ireland through the lens of human rights analysis and discourse. One of the great strengths of Curtis’ book is her exploration and elaboration of how rights are contingent and subjective. She focuses on how one could perceive the conflict and peace process in Northern Ireland through the traditional lens of human rights by focusing on claims of injustice and the denial of rights that caused the conflict, and how the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement (The Agreement) and efforts to implement it were the process by which these historical injustices were corrected and remedied. Instead of pursuing this facile and traditional narrative, Curtis offers a much more sophisticated and subtle analysis based on years of fieldwork that highlight the exceedingly contentious and evolving construction of rights in the context of peace politics in Northern Ireland. As a result, her work should be of great interest to those who study human rights, and should be seen as a major contribution to our understanding of the pursuit of peace in Northern Ireland. Her fieldwork enabled her to explain how members of each of the communities in Northern Ireland appropriated “rights talk” to pursue their collective political goals. Thus, rights discourse became a part of the conflict that could potentially play a role in pursuing peace but could also continue to entrench existing identities that perpetuate the conflict. While this ambiguity and paradox might make many uncomfortable and not conform to a more traditional understanding of a human rights agenda, it provides a more empirically satisfying explanation of human rights discourse in Northern Ireland. The research methodology used by Curtis, participant observation, allowed her to make first-hand observations of how local community groups were often organized and motivated by the goal of achieving their economic, political, and social rights, including her observation of gay groups in recent years. Her findings corroborate the work of many other scholars; the peace process in Northern Ireland has been very successful in lowering the scale of political violence, but this achievement has been made by “balancing the collective rights of opposed community groups … and institutionalizes ethnopolitical conflict in the mechanics of post-conflict politics.”1 Thus, a “minimalist” peace has been achieved, and Curtis argues that discussions of human rights in Northern Ireland continue the war between the communities by other means. This conclusion may seem excessively negative and cynical, but many would agree with Curtis that it is necessary, not only to understand what has been achieved, but to avoid exaggerating the lessons of the peace process. The negotiations that led to The Agreement had many admirable qualities that should be worthy of emulation elsewhere. However, the continuing sectarian divide in Northern Ireland clearly suggests that elite level negotiations or agreements cannot by themselves undermine a conflict that exists among people in their local communities. Thus, like a growing number of scholars, Curtis questions whether the consociational model of conflict management that is used to describe the governing arrangements established by The Agreement perpetuates conflict and undermines prospects for reconciliation between the communities. Curtis summarizes and explores how many in the nationalist community came to view the Good Friday Agreement as [End Page 562] guaranteeing them rights that had heretofore been denied to them. Her fieldwork with long and numerous discussions with those living in nationalist areas of Belfast provide compelling testimony as to how nationalists understood the changes that came with The Agreement. Curtis suggests that this narrative may have begun with Sinn Féin politicians but was rapidly adopted by many in the nationalist community. This understanding of The Agreement as an achievement of rights for Catholics coincided with and was reinforced by a simple desire to end the violence that had characterized the previous...

Security: Missing from the Northern Ireland Model

The Northern Ireland model is best defined as the framing of the political endgame of Northern Ireland’s conflict culminating in the 1998 Belfast Agreement, otherwise known as the Good Friday Agreement. The Northern Ireland model is popularly portrayed as a negotiated settlement. It focuses primarily on the bargain reached by Northern Irish political parties, assisted by British and Irish governments and mediated by US senator George Mitchell. Academics and officials alike use it to explain how the “Troubles” ended and peace was achieved. Conspicuously absent from this model is security. It also grossly understates the difficulty in dealing with a modern insurgency (the Provisionals) and leans too heavily toward skewed post-conflict thinking that views insurgents as “peacemakers” prevented from making peace because of a manifestly poor security response, particularly that of the police force and its intelligence agency (Special Branch). The perspective of politicians and diplomats who brokered the peace settlement prioritizes political negotiations at the expense of the security response; in so doing, the role of security is undermined and overlooked. Most contemporary academic works promote this outlook. Excluding security, however, thwarts a comprehensive analysis of the Northern Ireland conflict and renders any examination partial and unrepresentative. There is therefore a significant intellectual gap in our understanding of how peace was achieved, which this article redresses. Ultimately, it questions the Northern Ireland model’s capacity to assist in other relevant conflict contexts in any practical sense by arguing that a strategy where security pushed as politics pulled brought about peace. In other words, security played a crucial part because it forced the main protagonists into a situation out of which the Belfast Agreement emerged.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry:Transitional Justice and Postconflict Reconciliation in Northern Ireland

Recent research suggests that transitional justice interventions may be essential to advancing post-conflict reconciliation in societies that have been deeply divided by histories of gross human rights abuses. In Northern Ireland, a uniquely 'piecemeal' approach to the past emerged following the Belfast Agreement combining an array of discrete truth-recovery and justice initiatives to address the abuses of the Troubles. One of the most important of these interventions has been the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which in June 2010, released a Final Report of its findings regarding the controversial shooting deaths of 14 civilians in Derry/Londonderry on January 30th, 1972. This article provides a qualitative assessment of the degree to which the Inquiry has been able to advance crucial aspects of truth and justice for the events of Bloody Sunday and explores how these efforts have contributed to ongoing processes of reconciliation between Catholic/nationalists and Protestant/unionist communities in Northern Ireland.

Two Cheers for Consociational Democracy? Reforming the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive

This article discusses the attempts to reform the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive by the former's Assembly and Executive Review Committee. It situates the Committee's review of the Belfast Agreement's Strand One institutions within the context both of prior proposals to effect reform and the constraints, institutional and behavioural, created by Northern Ireland's model of consociational democracy.

Frontier Wars: Violence and Space in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Belfast seems well known as a violent city; it has experienced a long history of turmoil related to the British invasion and subsequent division based on ethnicity as seen through religion. Although the profile of the city has improved, meaning rising tourism and income, the Belfast Agreement of 1998, as well as divisions between ethnicities continues to haunt the city despite an apparent end to violence, fighting and paramilitary activity. This paper explores the relationship between violence and space as exemplified in Belfast through the ‘peacelines’ which stand in interface zones between Catholic and Protestant residential areas. As well as being physical barriers, the peacelines are also symbolic of segregation as it manifests itself in other ways; through the ways in which people move through space and the ways in which bodies and identity are reflections of the city. The process of gentrification is also explored in the context of Belfast, with recent literature suggesting that class conflict exists alongside ethnic conflict.

Karine Deslandes, Regards français sur le conflit nord-irlandais

This book, which is the fifth volume in the “Studies in Franco-Irish Relations” series edited by Eamon Maher, is an extremely interesting and useful examination of the coverage of the Northern Ireland conflict in the French press over the period running from 1969 to the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998. The text is based on research carried out at the University of Ulster (Coleraine). It looks at the way the French papers approach the Northern Irela...

Transitional Politics and Language Rights in a Multi-ethnic Northern Ireland: Towards a True Linguistic Pluralism?

This paper provides an overview of the deliberations on cultural diversity and language policy that have occurred in Northern Ireland since the onset of the peace process. The paper looks specifically at how policy decisions and political debate on the Irish language and the languages of migrant communities are driven by competing notions of Britishness and Irishness, despite a supposed desire in the Belfast Agreement to promote ‘respect, understanding and tolerance in relation to linguistic diversity’. The paper argues that the peace process has increased the level of policy discussion on both autochthonous and allochthonous language issues, but has also served to cement their position within ethnic conflict. While debates on new policy directions have raised discussions on intercultural awareness in policy delivery, the competing interests of the political parties have tended to act as a barrier to the development of a true linguistic pluralism.

Book Review: Policing the Police in Northern Ireland: Politics, Crime and Security after the Belfast Agreement

Book Review: Policing the Police in Northern Ireland: Politics, Crime and Security after the Belfast Agreement

The single transferable vote and ethnic conflict: The evidence from Northern Ireland

There has been a long-running debate amongst constitutional engineers between those who favour the proportional representation of parties (usually via PR-Closed List systems) and post-election power-sharing (Lijphart) and those who favour attempting to induce pre-election inter-ethnic ‘vote-pooling’ (Horowitz) as a more effective and stable method of governing divided societies. Less attention has been paid to the fact that other options are available. A leading candidate amongst these is the Single Transferable Vote (STV), a non-categorical ordinal ballot system that may be capable of combining the essential ‘fairness’ of proportionality with the centripetal benefits of some inter-ethnic vote-pooling. Northern Ireland is the only divided society with extensive experience of STV elections. This paper examines the empirical evidence before and after the 1998 Belfast Agreement by examining the operation of the electoral system at the Northern Ireland Assembly elections of 1982, 1998, 2003, 2007 and 2011. The main findings are that prior to the 1998 Agreement inter-ethnic vote-pooling in Northern Ireland was very close to zero. Afterwards (1998–2007) terminal transfers from the moderate unionist UUP to the moderate nationalist SDLP averaged 32 per cent (and 13 per cent in the opposite direction). Although most transfers clearly remain within ethnic blocs, these inter-ethnic terminal transfers are a change with the past and suggest that STV may be an appropriate electoral system choice for some divided societies.

Abortion and Citizenship Rights in a Devolved Region of the UK

The 1998 Belfast Agreement seemed to promise women in Northern Ireland equality. This article examines the extent to which that promise has been met by exploring abortion rights in the region. It situates abortion within a citizens’ rights framework. The article explores the interconnectedness of civil, political and social rights and the implications of an inability to vindicate any aspect of those rights.

Dealing with the Past in Northern Ireland: The Current State of Play

Introduction: Peace Dividend? The IRA and loyalist military groups declared ceasefires in 1994. Three and a half years later, the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was signed by all political parties, leading eventually, and after a number of major setbacks, to the establishment of a devolved, power-sharing Assembly and Executive. To begin with, it is

The Uniqueness of Northern Ireland Public Law

AbstractThis article is broadly based upon a presentation given by Gordon Anthony, which was given at the annual conference of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians on 15 June 2012 in Belfast. Its purpose is to outline some of the ways in which public law in Northern Ireland is unique within the wider setting of the UK. Although it is true that the law of Northern Ireland shares much in common with principle and practice elsewhere in the UK, there are some notable differences that are attributable to the fact that Northern Ireland has its own court system and legal and political history. The article thus examines some of the differences that exist at the constitutional level and which can be associated with, most famously, the Belfast Agreement 1998. It also summaries some of the differences that can be found at the level of legal citation, for instance of case law and statute law for the jurisdiction.

Unionism and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission 1999–2005: Hostility, Hubris and Hesitancy

The Belfast Agreement created an entirely new framework for the protection of human rights in Northern Ireland, the centrepiece of which was the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC). From the outset, human rights activists in Northern Ireland invested much hope in the ability of the NIHRC to help deliver a new rights-based approach to governance in Northern Ireland. However, since its inception, unionists in Northern Ireland have had a difficult relationship with this organisation, and the purpose of this article is to explore in greater depth the relationship between unionists and the NIHRC in the period between 1999 and 2005 during Professor Brice Dickson's tenure as Chief Commissioner. First, it considers the context, powers and remit of the NIHRC, before moving on to explore and analyse the relationship between influential strands of unionist opinion and the NIHRC 1999–2005, identifying what the key issues were for unionists during this period.

Problem, Process and Product: Implementing Key Reforms in Local Government in Northern Ireland Since the Belfast Agreement

This article maps the key findings from empirical research on how local government mainstreamed new statutory duties to promote equality and good relations in a change implementation process emerging from reform introduced in 1998 to embed the Northern Ireland peace process. It departs from the elite political focus of much of the international literature on peace building and addresses organisational change developments in a context that was intensely politicised, highly contentious and required radical organisational change. Newry and Mourne District Council addressed their problem of perceived inequality in employment, by engaging in a lengthy process of change and development to achieve ‘product’ in the form of a more balanced workforce, power sharing in the Chamber and more participative democratic arrangements for decision-making, both inside the organisation and in external relations. The key factors that facilitated this change process included the availability of political will, change champions, appropriate resources and structural adaptation.

Brokering Peace: Networks, Legitimacy, and the Northern Ireland Peace Process1

Goddard, Stacie E. (2012) Brokering Peace: Networks, Legitimacy, and the Northern Ireland Peace Process. International Studies Quarterly, doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00737.x © 2012 International Studies Association After over 20 years of fighting in Northern Ireland, the Belfast Agreement of 1998 has successfully implemented a power-sharing agreement. Belfast was not the first attempt at a peaceful settlement; indeed, some scholars count as many as seven prior peace attempts in Northern Ireland, the most significant being the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973. Why was it that politicians successfully negotiated the peace in 1998, while these prior attempts failed? Drawing from social network theory, I argue that the Belfast Agreement succeeded, not because of a change of interests or disappearance of spoilers, but because of the presence of brokers at the bargaining table. Brokers, in particular, have the capacity to legitimate settlements—to frame settlements in such a way that they appear consistent with principles held by multiple coalitions. As a result, brokers are both more likely to build a winning coalition for a settlement, as well as marginalize spoilers who seek to undermine the peace.

Devolution and the Politics of Development in Northern Ireland

The reintroduction of devolution in Northern Ireland is widely interpreted as the working out of the Belfast Agreement (1998) which aimed to embed political consensus in shared institutions of the state. However, such analysis tends to be limited with regard to wider political economy readings of the devolution project and historic struggles to find an appropriate institutional fix to manage different forms of crisis. Peace and stability have, it is argued, permitted Northern Ireland's reentry to global markets and circuits of capital with new governance structures being assembled to reconfigure ‘post-conflict’ economic space. We argue that the onset of devolution has promoted a mix between ethnosectarian resource competition and a constantly expanding neoliberal model of governance. Devolved neoliberal structures that sustain social polarisation may perpetuate strategies of resistance that could cut across and challenge ethnosectarian politics and deepening social segregation.

The contours of memory in post-conflict societies: enacting public remembrance of the bomb in Omagh, Northern Ireland

Drawing on the theoretical insights of Paul Ricoeur this paper investigates the geographies of public remembrance in a post-conflict society. In Northern Ireland, where political divisions have found expression through acts of extreme violence over the past 30 years, questions of memory and an amnesty for forgetting have particular resonance both at the individual and societal level, and render Ricoeur’s framework particularly prescient. Since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in 1998, initiating the Peace Process through consociational structures, discovering a nomenclature and set of practices which would aid in the rapprochement of a deeply divided society has presented a complex array of issues. In this paper I examine the various practices of public remembrance of the 1998 bombing of Omagh as a means of understanding how memory-spaces evolve in a post-conflict context. In Omagh there were a variety of commemorative practices instituted and each, in turn, adopted a different contour towards achieving reconciliation with the violence and grief of the bombing. In particular the Garden of Light project is analysed as a collective monument which, with light as its metaphysical centre, invited the populace to reflect backward on the pain of the bombing while at the same time enabling the society to look forward toward a peaceful future where a politics of hope might eclipse a politics of despair.

Cultural Threat and Anti‐immigrant Prejudice: The Case of Protestants in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACTCultural threat has emerged as a consistent predictor of anti‐immigrant and anti‐minority attitudes across many different national contexts. We examine this issue in the context of Northern Ireland using representative survey data, suggesting that Protestant and unionist communities experience a higher level of cultural threat than Catholic and nationalist communities on account of the ‘parity of esteem’ principle that has informed changes in the province since the Belfast Agreement of 1998. Our analyses confirm that, although there is evidence for some level of anti‐immigrant sentiment across all groups, Protestants and unionists do indeed report relatively more negative attitudes towards a range of immigrant and ethnic target groups compared with Catholics, nationalists or respondents who do not identify with any political category. The analyses further suggest that their higher level of perceived cultural threat partially accounts for this difference. We argue that cultural threat can be interpreted as a response to changes in Northern Ireland that have challenged the dominant status enjoyed by Protestants and unionists in the past. More generally, we argue that a politicised characterisation of cultural threat needs to be elaborated through future work. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

'Anti‐social' Networking in Northern Ireland: Policy Responses to Young People's Use of Social Media for Organizing Anti‐social Behavior

AbstractTen years after the Belfast Agreement, Northern Ireland remains a divided society as signified by the persistence and even proliferation of interface areas, often divided by so‐called ‘peace walls’ and intermittent conflict between rival communities on either side. Recent media reports have suggested that online interactions between rival interface communities on social networking sites may be undermining efforts to foster better intercommunity relationships. This article explores the extent to which key stakeholders are aware of the use of the Internet by young people to plan street riots in interface areas in Northern Ireland and their responses to this ‘anti‐social’ use of sites such as Bebo. It presents evidence to suggest that stakeholder awareness about the extent of the use of social media by young people to organize street riots is based on rumour and hearsay. Key stakeholders report that Internet Safety programmes have received positive feedback from local audiences but concede that they are unlikely have any significant impact upon the level of anti‐social behavior in interface areas.

Sectarian and nonsectarian violence: Mothers' appraisals of political conflict in Northern Ireland.

Past research on peace and conflict in Northern Ireland has focused on politically-motivated violence. However, other types of crime (i.e., nonsectarian) also impact community members. To study the changing nature of violence since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland the current study used qualitative methods to distinguish between nonsectarian and sectarian antisocial behavior. Analyses were conducted using the Constant Comparative Method to illuminate thematic patterns in focus groups with Catholic and Protestant mothers from segregated Belfast neighborhoods. Participants differentiated between nonsectarian and sectarian violence; the latter was further distinguished into two dimensions - overt acts and intergroup threat. Although both nonsectarian and sectarian antisocial behavior related to insecurity, participants described pulling together and increased ingroup social cohesion in response to sectarian threats. The findings have implications for the study of violence and insecurity as experienced in the everyday lives of mothers, youth, and families in settings of protracted conflict.