SIFAIS LA CARPIO

Compared to the Unionist and Nationalist movements within Northern Ireland,

Britain’s involvement in campaigning during the run-up to the agreement was minimal due to its need for impartiality, aside from a general government campaign encouraging a yes vote. As such, in contrast to this section in subsections on other actors where the focus will be on campaigns during referendum on the Belfast Agreement, this section will simply analyse desecuritising factors within the text of the Belfast Agreement itself.

With that in mind, this section will be rather short as, in essence, there is relatively little new that the agreement offers that had not been offered before and has thus been previously covered in the previous subsection on desecuritisation in the run-up to the Belfast Agreement, suffice to say that the Belfast Agreement represents a codification of previous statements of intent, agreements and concessions. With that in mind, there are effectively two

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substantial and new developments that the Belfast agreement has to offer in terms of desecuritisation from the British side.

The first of the more significant desecuritisations is the introduction of the European Convention on Human Rights to Northern Irish law in full (Government of Great Britain & Government of the Republic of Ireland, 1998). This essentially brought an end to restrictions to human rights both imposed by Stormont and, subsequently, Westminster, for various objectives including security, but also political objectives. This represents a significant step in changing the way the United Kingdom particularly had dealt with the conflict and therefore outlining a shift in the way it was securitised – to make such a significant step was a sure indication that the United Kingdom no longer felt it necessary, or was at least prepared to indicate as much, to limit human rights in Northern Ireland in the name of security. As such, this represents a significant step in desecuritisation.

The second main desecuritisation was the outlining of a need for change in policing and justice in Northern Ireland. As outlined in the section on historical securitisations, the Royal Ulster Constabulary was viewed by many, particularly Catholics, to be a tool of Unionists or even Loyalists due to its almost exclusively Protestant makeup (Alcock, 1994). As such, because the Royal Ulster Constabulary was securitised to such a degree, the

agreement outlined a need for a review of policing in Northern Ireland with a view to provide Northern Ireland with a significantly more representative, and importantly an unarmed police force. In doing so, the agreement outlined the following:

‘[The participants] believe that the agreement provides the opportunity for a new beginning to policing in Northern Ireland with a police service capable of attracting and sustaining support from the community as a whole. They also believe that this agreement offers a unique opportunity to bring about a new political dispensation which will recognise the full and equal legitimacy and worth of the identities, senses of allegiance and ethos of all sections of the community in Northern Ireland. They

consider that this opportunity should inform and underpin the development of a police service representative in terms of the make-up of the community as a whole and which, in a peaceful environment, should be routinely unarmed.’ (Government of Great Britain & Government of the Republic of Ireland, 1998)

This was again a huge step, especially in terms of desecuritisation as it meant that the Government of the United Kingdom particularly was committing to investigating and, given

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the wording of the agreement, would be hard pressed to not find at least some areas that could be reformed to fit the policing of Northern Ireland within this framework. The outcomes of this investigation, however, are a topic of their own that will be covered in the following subsection on UK desecuritisation post-Belfast Agreement.

There were some additional somewhat lesser desecuritisations – referred to as such not because they were lesser in scope, but because they did not alter developments as significantly as the two provisions outlined above – involving other sectors. The first of these was a

commitment by the UK to officially recognise Northern Ireland’s right to self-determination, stating that both the UK and the Republic of Ireland would:

‘…recognise that it is for the people of the island of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland’ (Government of Great Britain & Government of the Republic of Ireland, 1998)

Secondly, an agreement for the release of prisoners who had taken part in ‘scheduled offences’ in both Northern Ireland and elsewhere in Ireland and the UK, and who were part of paramilitary groups who had agreed to ceasefire terms and to a cessation of violence, would be considered for release (ibid.).

The former issue of self-determination is only slightly related to desecuritisation as it does not represent a significant shift in securitisation, in spite of being a key policy, as it does not reframe the conflict in a way that was not a new policy as such, simply a codification of an existing policy. The latter issue of the release of prisoners represented a greater degree of de-securitisation as it made it evident that the UK no longer viewed organisations that renounced violence as a threat, but this is not as significant as it seems as the UK had made this position very clear in the run-up to the peace talks and therefore it did not represent a shift in securitisation, but rather a codification of policy that stemmed from a previous shift.

Likewise, the overarching theme within the agreement of multi-party talks, multi-party governance and multi-party policing was simply a codification of a previous shift in securitisation already covered in the previous subsection of this thesis.

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