Ethnic conflict and its resolution : the new Northern Ireland model

The agreement reached between the British and Irish governments and the Northern Irish political parties in April 1998 was a complex and subtle political document that built on experience in other societies and that itself has some capacity to serve as a model for others. This paper begins by examining the nature of the problem that the new settlement is designed to resolve, commenting briefly on the extent to which it shares common features with other cases of ethnic conflict. It proceeds by describing the contours of the process by which a successful accommodation was arrived at, and concludes with an analysis of the central features of the settlement. In addition to their three-part constitutional core, these included wide ranging compromises in the areas of equality and citizenship, rights, reform of policing and of the criminal justice system, prisoner release, and demilitarisation and decommis-sioning of paramilitary weapons.