Good Friday Agreement
Signed on 10 April 1998 (Good Friday) after 22 months of negotiations chaired by former US Senator George Mitchell, the Belfast Agreement ended the Troubles and established the framework for Northern Ireland's political future. It created a power-sharing Executive in which the largest unionist and largest nationalist parties must both participate; a North-South Ministerial Council for cross-border cooperation; and a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. It also established the principle that Northern Ireland's constitutional status could only change with the consent of a majority of its people — giving nationalists the pathway to a united Ireland and unionists the guarantee against change without democratic legitimacy. The Agreement was approved by 71% of Northern Ireland voters and 94% of Irish Republic voters in simultaneous referenda on 22 May 1998. Implementation was difficult: decommissioning of paramilitary weapons was contested; the Assembly was suspended four times between 1999 and 2007. The 2007 St Andrews Agreement produced the historic coalition between the DUP (Paisley) and Sinn Fein (McGuinness) that the Agreement had been designed to make possible, ending three decades of political violence that had killed over 3,500 people.
- Year: 1998 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
