The Good Friday Agreement or Belfast Agreement (Irish: Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or Comhaontú Bhéal Feirste; Ulster Scots: Guid Friday Greeance or Bilfawst Greeance) is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April (Good Friday) 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, an ethnic and national conflict in Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. It was a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. It is made up of the Multi-Party Agreement between most of Northern Ireland's political parties, and the British–Irish Agreement between the British and Irish governments. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the Agreement.
Issues relating to sovereignty, governance, discrimination, military and paramilitary groups, justice and policing were central to the Agreement. It restored self-government to Northern Ireland on the basis of "power sharing" and it included acceptance of the principle of consent, commitment to civil and political rights, cultural parity of esteem, police reform, paramilitary disarmament and early release of paramilitary prisoners, followed by demilitarisation. The Agreement also created a number of institutions between Northern Ireland and Ireland ("North–South"), and between Ireland and the United Kingdom ("East–West").
The Agreement was approved by voters across the island of Ireland in two referendums held on 22 May 1998. In Northern Ireland, voters were asked in the 1998 Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement referendum whether they supported the multi-party Agreement. In the Republic of Ireland, voters were asked whether they would allow the state to sign the Agreement and allow necessary constitutional changes (Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland) to facilitate it. The people of both jurisdictions needed to approve the Agreement to give effect to it.
The British–Irish Agreement came into force on 2 December 1999. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was the only major political group in Northern Ireland to oppose the Good Friday Agreement.
History and process
When the Irish Free State was established in 1922 (under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921), six of the island's northern counties remained part of the United Kingdom. For Northern Ireland, the decades that followed were marked by tensions and controversies, sometimes spilling over into violence, between unionists who favoured remaining with Britain and nationalists who favoured unification with the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Ireland). Starting in the late 1960s, this conflict became more intense and more violent. In the ensuing period of over 30 years, over 3,500 deaths were attributed to these hostilities, which came to be known as the Troubles.
Serious political efforts to end the conflict began in the late 1980s and continued through the 1990s. Ceasefires were declared and later broken. The Agreement came after many years of complex talks, proposals, and compromises. Many people made major contributions. Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern were leaders of the UK and the Republic of Ireland at the time, respectively and Mo Mowlam was the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The talks were chaired by United States special envoy George J. Mitchell.
Structure
The Agreement is made up of two corresponding documents, both agreed in Belfast on Good Friday, 10 April 1998:
- a multi-party agreement by most of Northern Ireland's political parties (the Multi-Party Agreement);
- an international agreement between the British and Irish governments (the British–Irish Agreement).
The Agreement set out a complex series of provisions relating to a number of areas, including:
- The status and system of government of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. (Strand 1)
- The relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. (Strand 2)
- The relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. (Strand 3)
Parties
The Agreement was made between the British and Irish governments and eight political parties or groupings from Northern Ireland. Three were representative of unionism: the Ulster Unionist Party, which had led unionism in Ulster since the beginning of the 20th century, and two smaller parties associated with Loyalist paramilitaries, the Progressive Unionist Party (linked with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF)), and Ulster Democratic Party (the political wing of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)). Two were broadly labelled nationalist: the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and Sinn Féin, the republican party associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Independent of these rival traditions were two other Assembly parties, the cross-community Alliance Party and the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. There was also the grouping Labour Coalition. US senator George J. Mitchell was sent by US president Bill Clinton to chair the talks.
The Agreement comprises two elements:
- a treaty between the two states, signed by the leaders of the two governments; and
- a more substantial agreement between the eight political parties and the two governments.
The former text has just four articles; it is that short text that is the legal agreement, but it incorporates in its schedules the latter agreement. Technically, this scheduled agreement can be distinguished as the Multi-Party Agreement, as opposed to the Belfast Agreement itself.
The vague wording of some of the provisions, described as "constructive ambiguity", helped ensure acceptance of the Agreement and served to postpone debate on some of the more contentious issues. Most notably these included paramilitary decommissioning, police reform and the normalisation of Northern Ireland.
Status of Northern Ireland
The Agreement acknowledged:
- that the majority of the people of Northern Ireland wished to remain a part of the United Kingdom;
- that a substantial section of the people of Northern Ireland, and the majority of the people of the island of Ireland, wished to bring about a united Ireland.
Both of these views were acknowledged as being legitimate. For the first time, the Irish government accepted in a binding international agreement that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. The Irish Constitution was also amended to implicitly recognise Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom's sovereign territory, conditional upon the consent for a united Ireland from majorities of the people in both jurisdictions on the island. On the other hand, the language of the Agreement reflects a switch in the United Kingdom's statutory emphasis from one for the union to one for a united Ireland. The Agreement thus left the issue of future sovereignty over Northern Ireland open-ended.
The Agreement reached was that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom, and would remain so until a majority of the people both of Northern Ireland and of the Republic of Ireland wished otherwise. Should that happen, then the British and Irish governments are under "a binding obligation" to implement that choice.
Irrespective of Northern Ireland's constitutional status within the United Kingdom, or part of a united Ireland, the right of "the people of Northern Ireland" to "identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both" (as well as their right to hold British or Irish citizenship or both) was recognised. By the words "people of Northern Ireland" the Agreement meant "all persons born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British citizen, an Irish citizen or is otherwise entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence."
The two governments also agreed, irrespective of the position of Northern Ireland:
the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction there shall be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all the people in the diversity of their identities and traditions and shall be founded on the principles of full respect for, and equality of, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, of freedom from discrimination for all citizens, and of parity of esteem and of just and equal treatment for the identity, ethos and aspirations of both communities.
As part of the Agreement, the British parliament repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (which had established Northern Ireland, partitioned Ireland and asserted a territorial claim over all of Ireland) and the people of the Republic of Ireland amended Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland, which had asserted a territorial claim over Northern Ireland.
New institutions
The Agreement sets out a framework for the creation and number of institutions across three "strands".
Strand 1
Strand 1 dealt with the democratic institutions of Northern Ireland and established two major institutions:
The Northern Ireland Assembly is a devolved legislature for Northern Ireland with mandatory cross-community voting on certain major decisions. The Northern Ireland Executive is a power-sharing executive with ministerial portfolios to be allocated between parties by the D'Hondt method. Operation of the Assembly has been suspended several times since its creation, sometimes for years.
Strand 2
Strand 2 dealt with "north–south" issues and institutions to be created between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. These are:
The North/South Ministerial Council is made up of ministers from the Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of Ireland. It was established "to develop consultation, co-operation and action" in twelve areas of mutual interest. These include six areas where the Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of Ireland form common policies but implement these separately in each jurisdiction, and six areas where they develop common policies that are implemented through shared all-Ireland institutions.
The various "institutional and constitutional arrangements" set out in the Agreement are also stated to be "interlocking and interdependent".
As part of the Agreement, the newly created Northern Ireland Assembly and the national parliament of Ireland (the Oireachtas) agreed to consider creating a joint parliamentary forum made up of equal numbers from both institutions. In October 2012, this forum was created as the North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association.
The Northern Ireland political parties who endorsed the Agreement were also asked to consider the establishment of an independent consultative forum representative of civil society with members with expertise in social, cultural, economic and other issues and appointed by the two administrations. An outline structure for the North/South Consultative Forum was agreed in 2002 and in 2006 the Northern Ireland Executive agreed it would support its establishment. As of 2020, the Forum had still not been created.
Strand 3
Strand 3 dealt with "east–west" issues and institutions to be created between Ireland and Great Britain (as well as the Crown dependencies). These are:
The British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference was agreed to replace the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Council and the Intergovernmental Conference created under the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.
The conference takes the form of regular and frequent meetings between the British and Irish ministers to promote co-operation at all levels between both governments. On matters not devolved to Northern Ireland, the Government of Ireland may put forward views and proposals. All decisions of the conference will be by agreement between both governments and the two governments agreed to make determined efforts to resolve disagreements between them.
The British–Irish Council is made up of ministerial representatives from the British and Irish governments, the UK's devolved administrations (Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), as well as from the Crown dependencies, the Isle of Man, Jersey, and Guernsey. The purpose of the council is to promote co-operations and pose a forum for the creation of common policies.
Under the Agreement, it was proposed that the already-existing British–Irish Interparliamentary Body would be built upon. Prior to the Agreement, the body was composed of parliamentarians from the British and Irish parliaments only. In 2001, as suggested by the Agreement, it was expanded to incorporate parliamentarians from all of the members of the British–Irish Council.
These institutional arrangements created across these three strands are set out in the Agreement as being "interlocking and interdependent". In particular, the functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the North/South Ministerial Council are stated to be "so closely inter-related that the success of each depends on that of the other" and participation in the North/South Ministerial Council is "one of the essential responsibilities attaching to relevant posts in [Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland]".
In the opinion of analyst Brendan O'Leary, the institutions established by the deal "made Northern Ireland bi-national" and reinforced "imaginative elements of co-sovereignty".
Decommissioning and normalisation
Against the background of political violence during the Troubles, the Agreement committed the participants to "exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues". This took two aspects: