Agreement on Northern Ireland
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 24 June 1998 (21st Sitting) (see Doc. 8134, report of the Political Affairs Committee, rapporteur: Mr Mota Amaral). Text adopted by the Assembly on 24 June 1998 (21st Sitting).
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly welcomes the agreement on Northern Ireland of 10 April 1998, reached in the multi-party negotiations and concluded between the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland.
2. This agreement creates an exceptional opportunity for a peaceful and lasting settlement of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
3. The Assembly welcomes the positive outcome of the referendum held on 22 May 1998, which demonstrates the wide public and political support the agreement has received in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, which increases its chances of being successfully implemented.
4. The Assembly calls on all political parties in Northern Ireland to seize this opportunity to move forward in rebuilding trust and co-operation between the two communities.
5. The Assembly considers that the following principles were instrumental in reaching the agreement:
5.1 a clear set of commitments accepted prior to the talks (renouncing the use of force, agreeing to use peaceful means to resolve political issues and to abide by terms of any agreement reached);
5.2 an international mediator;
5.3 an open-ended agenda;
5.4 an agreed deadline to reach an agreement;
5.5 agreed procedures on prisoners’conditional release;
5.6 the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law;
5.7 a proposed bill of rights and action in the spirit of Council of Europe conventions;
5.8 international involvement in the implementation of the agreement.
6. The Assembly, while recognising that all political conflicts are by their very nature multi-faceted, highly complex, and only comparable to a certain extent, considers that the above-mentioned principles could be usefully applied to other conflicts in Europe and elsewhere.
7. The Assembly resolves to examine how the above-mentioned principles can be applied to conflict situations in other member and applicant states. Their acceptance by the parties involved would be an indicator of political will to find a peaceful political solution to such conflicts.
