The Agreement The Referendum The Troubles Highlights Who's Who What Next? Analysis Timeline Paramilitaries

By Keith Fitzgerald
Associate at the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School

As is often the case shortly after a public announcement of a historic peace agreement, all eyes are on Northern Ireland.

People all over Northern Ireland and the world are waiting for an outcome. Will it work? Will it fail? The first thing to remember at this critical time is that the agreement won't do anything. Success is largely up to the people of Northern Ireland.

In the past, various political parties -- Unionist and Nationalist alike -- have managed to agree on frameworks, assorted principles and even some institutions, but never on their future. It's refreshing to see that they have stopped trying, and that may be the key to success this time around.

Rather than trying to compromise on a static solution, the parties have crafted a sophisticated way of going forward that acknowledges and accepts existing complexities instead of trying to change what cannot be changed.

The April 10 agreement is an experiment in new senses of national identity. It effectively treats identity, citizenship and national allegiance each on their own merits, without sacrificing clarity of administrative jurisdiction.

This is not only an experiment for the people of Northern Ireland (and by extension and by legal obligation the people of the United Kingdom and Ireland), but if the people of Northern Ireland can make this work, it will be a valuable lesson for people from Sudan to South Ossetia.

The agreement acknowledges and accommodates the many seeming contradictions that so many Nationalists and Unionists have long considered the cost of living in Northern Ireland.

It does so without forcing them to choose one side or the other, as most have always felt pressured to do.

One potential promise of this agreement is that people will be allowed to feel their "Irish-ness," and/or their "British-ness," and exercise practical political and economic affiliations. It creates enough room so that these facets of identity are no longer made irreconcilable by their political context.

In the agreement, the parties have found a way to enshrine a number of important principles that for so long had been the object of partisan confrontation.

In these negotiations -- and in the resulting document -- they have managed to guarantee:

• the principle of equality;
• the principle of majority consent;
• the principles of nonviolence, good faith and democracy;
• the harmonization of human rights and other legal standards;
• the principle of citizenship as an expression of personal will.

Some potentially difficult problems are postponed.

For example, in principle, the idea of majority consent sounds reasonable and has long been a Unionist demand. However, in practice, what would it look like if and when a majority favors a united Ireland and an end to union with Britain? While I doubt we would see troops from Dublin rolling into Belfast the day after the vote, there may be a risk of a return to the same protracted conflict. There is obviously much work to be done.

A great strength of the agreement is that it allows Nationalists to claim victory in the affirmation of treatment as equal citizens within Northern Ireland with credible, inclusive, legal and administrative guarantees. Nationalists can also point to a greater role for Dublin in the affairs of Northern Ireland, stronger official ties between north and south, and they can view the agreement as a significant step toward a united Ireland.

At the same time, Unionists can point to an affirmation of the principle of majority consent. To them, the agreement strengthens and further legitimizes Northern Ireland's place within the union.

Meanwhile, those backing the agreement have to be careful that one side doesn't take the other's view of its significance.

In other words, they must hope that Nationalists see it as a step toward a united Ireland without Unionists seeing it as a Trojan Horse sent from Dublin.

At the same time, they must hope that Unionists see it as strengthening Northern Ireland's place within the Union without Nationalists feeling that it only offers them symbolic connections with the South while the real power is concentrated in London and Stormont Castle.

This agreement also promises benefits to the United Kingdom and Ireland by allowing them to share some of the obligations for Northern Ireland and by obliging them to harmonize domestic human rights legislation to meet European Commission standards.

It is also potentially a great victory for the European Union. It is entirely appropriate for observers to see Europe as the "warm bath" in which such an experiment in identity, citizenship and shared sovereignty can take place.

KEITH M. FITZGERALD is an associate at the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School and a member of the nonprofit Conflict Management Group (CMG) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has worked as a security policy analyst in Belfast, and is currently working on a Project on Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland.