Musings Often in Stereo

Note: This is a project description for POL 4410: Topics in Comparative Politics – Justice in Times of Global Transition. In essence, the field of transitional justice deals with post-conflict studies; namely, how do countries deal with the horrors of a past that often involve authoritarianism, civil war, extreme racism, and other sickening bits of oppression. This paper deals with transitional justice methods after the Northern Irish Troubles, a thirty-plus year war that saw sectarian tensions between ethnic Irish Catholics and British Protestants explode into separatist terror and loyalist bloodshed. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart as an ethnically Irish Catholic who can draw half of his family tree less than 100 miles from Ulster, but simultaneously as a Protestant Lutheran. I’ll admit my biases: I cannot justify support of a terrorist organization, but I inactively support the efforts of the Sinn Fein to unite Ulster with the whole of Ireland. Irish identity, to me, includes Ulster, both its Protestants and Catholics, and I wholeheartedly hope that there will come a day where a peaceful Ireland can also be a united one.
Anyhow, the paper I will be writing after this for 4410 will be an analysis of the reports by the Consultative Group on the Past, which are detailed near the end of the second section. They are available at www.cgpni.org. I highly recommend reading both the full report, which contextualizes the Troubles in a good way for the layman, as well as the executive summary, which boils the report down into the key issues and recommendations for the British and Northern Irish governments to heal the nation (if you can call Northern Ireland a nation, which is a debate for an entirely different paper). I’m not sure if I’ll post the later paper, as it’ll be 25 pages long and will contain a healthy amount of theory that will go over your heads without taking this class. If you are available, however, a good primer for transitional justice will be occurring over Friday lunch (12:15-1:15 or so) at the U of M’s St. Paul Student Center, where Professor Leigh Payne (the teacher for my class) will be discussing her latest book on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

“How Long Must We Sing This Song?”: Analyzing Transitional Justice in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland’s long history of ethnic, religious, and political sectarianism manifested itself in a thirty-two year war known to locals as “the Troubles.” The Troubles saw Northern Ireland torn apart by violence from paramilitant groups divided between republicanists, a mainly Catholic minority that supported succession to Ireland, and loyalists that wished to remain part of the United Kingdom. As with many conflicts, Northern Ireland has enacted some forms of transitional justice, though such work has been tepid at best. Of late, however, there has been a glimmer of hope with the release of a new report by the Consultative Group on the Past.

A History of Violence

Much discussion exists as to what scope Northern Ireland’s Troubles had. Some scholars ascribe the tensions that started the Troubles to the same divisions that led to Northern Ireland’s refusal to join the Irish Free State in the 1920s (Munck 211). As a result, a divide among both religious and ethnic/national lines became incredibly apparent, with ethnically Irish Catholics supporting a united Ireland and ethnically British Protestants supporting Unionism, an ideology that allied itself with being part of the United Kingdom (Doherty 521). This divide drew at all parts of the culture and turned into first a civil rights struggle, then a prolonged war that acted first as a paramilitary struggle, then as a series of terrorist attacks by both Unionist forces and Republicanists, represented by the Irish Republican Army. The violence officially ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. In the agreement, the British government agreed to devolve power to the Northern Irish, who in turn agreed to split power between Unionists and Republicanists, namely the IRA’s political wing, the Sinn Féin (Lloyd 109).

The numbers involved with a thirty-two year war are staggering: 3,523 killed between 1969 and 2001, over 1,800 of whom were civilians (“Full Report” 60-61). 43,200 people injured during that time. Thousands left in exile. Within 1972, the year of Bloody Sunday in Derry, nearly 500 people were killed (Kuuisto-Arponen 123). Violence spread not only into England, with a series of IRA bombings in London through the 1980s, but also into Germany, where paramilitary forces shot and killed an RAF officer in front of his family.

One event in the war was the Falls Curfew of 1970. In it, the British Army took control of the Catholic Lower Falls neighborhood of the Northern Irish capital, Belfast, over a weekend. Without consent and authority of the local authorities, the Army blocked entry and exit from the neighborhood, into which they proceeded to launch gas canisters, raid houses for Irish Republican Army members or materiel, and fire 1,500 live rounds. The attack saw the arrests of 337 republicanists, and four people, all believed to be civilians, died (“Falls Curfew” 343).

Despite the end of violence and the signing of accords like the Good Friday Agreement, tensions still are high in Northern Ireland. Neighborhoods continue to be settled along ethnic and religious lines that continued to grow more and more segregated throughout the conflict (Doherty). Actions as simple as going grocery shopping are seen as a political act that show where your nationalistic intentions lie. Frequenting neighborhood A over neighborhood B suggests your religion, your politics, your trust and mistrust of the opposite sect (Kuuisto-Arponen 121). Northern Ireland suffers still from a triplicate or quadruplicate identity: Irish, Northern Irish, Northern Irish Protestant, and British (Grove 727), all of which are competing both electorally and culturally. Debates continue as to what value religion can have in either perpetuating or stopping violence (Mac Iver 135-136), whether legitimatizing a once terrorist organization can lead to harmony (Lloyd 109), and whether the structures of government that remained largely intact from the 1920s would be able to rectify the issues that were not solved before 1969′s explosion of violence (Boyle 271).

The Slow Process of Transitional Justice

What has frustrated transitional justice scholars is that little to nothing had been done in Northern Ireland to address the past between 1998′s signing of the Good Friday Agreement and 2006. Trials had not taken place to convict members of the IRA or of the loyalist forces like the UDR for their actions during any stage of the conflict, though it had not been from a formal amnesty. Instead, there simply had not been investigations. There had been no framework for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission enacted by the government. The lustration and vetting that had already existed in Northern Irish society by sect had, by and large, continued, though this was clearly a result of the continued ethnic divisions instead of any sort of victor’s justice.

Three actions that can be loosely interpreted as transitional justice occurred before 2007. First, in January of 1998, months before the Good Friday Agreement was signed, British Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced a new inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday. Known both as the “Bloody Sunday” or the Saville Inquiry, it first heard testimony in Derry in March 2000 and heard testimony from over 900 witnesses (“Bloody Sunday inquiry”). The second was the 2002 Cory Collusion Inquiry. In it, retired Canadian justice Peter Cory reviewed testimony suggesting that a series of deaths in the Troubles were the result of collusion between paramilitary groups like the IRA and RUC with their subjugate national security forces (“Collusion Inquiry”). The third was the September 2005 establishment and January 2006 commencement of the Historical Enquiries Team. The HET has been tasked with investigating 3,268 deaths attributed to the violence during the Troubles from 1968-1998 and could result in a series of trials if perpetrators are deemed guilty of aggressive and non-security related violence (Connolly 416-417). All three instances are forms of retributive justice that are limited in scope; none intend to address the core issues the Troubles represent, opting instead for individual cases.

Only one major instance of restorative justice that took its direction from the state existed before 2007. In 1997, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland directed Sir Kenneth Bloomfield to develop avenues of recognition for the victims of the Troubles. His report, published in April 1998, outlines recommendations of a purely restorative nature. In it, he suggests that the Northern Irish and British governments make a concerted effort to provide for victims that are physically and mentally suffering from trauma, that the governments consider but not enact a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission, that a “Memorial and Reconciliation” holiday be enacted, and that a garden memorial be created (Bloomfield 50-51).

The common link with the elements of transitional justice that Northern Ireland used before 2007 is that none of them saw a result. The Saville Inquiry, after 13 years and an estimated cost of 181 million pounds, has yet to publish a final report, with Secretary of State Shaun Woodward declaring in 2008 that he did not think that report was soon to be completed (“Bloody Sunday inquiry”). Of the four cases in the Cory Collusion Inquiries involving collusion with British forces, further investigation into three were delayed until a more strict inquiry act was ratified in 2005, rendering any investigation that could result in charges toothless; the fourth received no discussion of an inquiry (Massimino 4-5). A limited number of prosecutions have come out of the work of the HET with few expected to occur (Connolly 417). Few of the recommendations of the Bloomfield Report were enacted by the Northern Irish or British governments (Connolly 422).

In this context of limited transitional justice, the Consultative Group on the Past was instituted by the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in June of 2007 to analyze the deep-seated tensions that the Troubles displayed and to recommend actions for the future. The Group reviewed testimony for five months, interviewed community members and victims groups, reviewed files from the British government, and discussed over two thousand letters from individuals that had suffered from violence during the Troubles (“Executive Summary” 12-13). After a lengthy deliberation, they released both the Full Report and Executive Summaries in January of 2009.

The Full Report and Executive Summary detail the deep-seated divisions in Northern Irish society and suggest a series of changes be enacted. First, the report suggests that a Legacy Commission be enacted “to deal with the legacy of the past by combining processes of reconciliation, justice and information recovery. It would have the overarching objective of promoting peace and stability in Northern Ireland.” This commission would act much like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the sense that it would promote victims telling stories of how the violence impacted their lives. The Legacy Commission would work with the Commission for Victims and Survivors of Northern Ireland on a Reconciliation Commission to promote nation-building and nation-healing activities with the aim of lessening sectarian sentiment. Next, the report suggests a recognition payment of 12,000 pounds to the next of kin of any person who died during the conflict, paramilitant or citizen. Additionally, the report emphasizes the need to fund services for all citizens who are suffering from psychological trauma and chemical dependency, a plague that has hit citizens and is often blamed on the residuals of post-traumatic stress. The report details the structure and aim of the Legacy Commission to investigate and analyze cases from the Northern Irish past and to determine proper ways to deal with the societal issues they present. The Legacy Commission would take over the work of the HET and replace it with a non-police Review and Investigation Unit. In regards to further inquiries, public inquests would largely stop, with the Commission tasked to “draw a line” on where prosecution would occur — a line that is explicitly not intended to be an amnesty. Finally, the report suggests methods of restorative justice, including the state adoption of the Day of Remembering enacted by the NGO Healing Through Remembering; workshops that involve victims telling their stories without politicization; rhetorical affirmations of the need for a united and non-sectarian Northern Ireland by the First Minister; a ceremony involving the governments of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Northern Ireland to mark the past and remember those who died, and a suggestion to all political parties to sign an agreement to never again kill or injure because of political division. All of this work would occur within the five year term of the Commission (“Executive Summary” 6-10).

Further Analysis of the Consultative Group’s Report

The reports by the Consultative Group on the Past warrant academic analysis that, thus far, has been hard to come by. The Transitional Justice Database bibliography contains no reviews of the reports and, unfortunately, only includes one unrelated paper written on the conflict after the reports were issued (Reiter). Much of the literature on Northern Ireland bemoans the lack of transitional justice that has taken place and the fact that victims groups are clamoring for some sort of institutional action (“Frontiers” 341). The existence of the reports renders the literature out of date, and a review of the report can determine if the literature is obsolete.

Therefore, I plan to research the following question: “What does the Consultative Group on the Past’s recommendations do in the field of transitional justice in Northern Ireland?” The paper will provide an analysis of the Consultative Group on the Past’s Full Report and Executive Summary. In it, I intend to review the recommendations made, analyze those recommendations in light of transitional justice methods and theories, and then analyze the recommendations in light of the conflict itself and the complications that Northern Irish culture presents.

There are a pair of competing tracks of analysis, that of skepticism and optimism. There are serious issues raised by all parties about the report’s findings and recommendations, chiefly the issue of reparations for all who died in the conflict instead of solely civilian families. Additionally, the report does seem to be ambiguous at best in dealing with the issue of amnesty; while the report doesn’t suggest amnesty for perpetrators of violence, it also plays down the notion of mass prosecutions (“Legacies of 40 years of violence”). Coincident with that, an initial reading suggests that the justice involved with the report’s recommendations should be restorative first with retributive justice pushed aside. Finally, the report’s suggestions tend to involve devolution of power from groups that are performing transitional justice already, namely the investigations into deaths by the Police Ombudsman that will now fall under the Legacy Commission (“Executive Summary” 29). My personal skepticism is based exclusively with my lack of familiarity with restorative programs, but I do think taking a narrow track in the scope of justice is a clear misstep.

All those concerns aside, the report is clearly a start of institutional transitional justice in Northern Ireland. The nation had largely shied away from discussing methods of transitional justice in the past, even going against deciding on what an objective truth of the conflict was. This allowed all sides to continue the political antagonism that had plagued the nation for centuries and manifested itself from 1966-1998, and to a different extent to the present. The Good Friday Agreement provides no route for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and instead skirts the issue of there being greater forces at work than simple political division (Connolly 414-415). As late as 2003, theoreticians were debating how to frame the conflict in the lens of transitional justice, let alone enact it. Colm Campbell and Fionnaula Ni Aolain argue with some resignation that transitional justice has difficulties with a state like Northern Ireland, which operates not in the structure of authoritarianism but as a “leading Western democracy” (“Frontiers” 339). While the state did enact a pair of inquiries into violence of the past, notably the Saville Inquiry that investigated the Bloody Sunday killings of 1972, the state ignored the past in order to create legitimate rule — a fact bemoaned by the Consultative Group. In essence, there have been nearly no moves by the Northern Irish or British governments in the arena of transitional justice, an issue that has perpetuated tensions. The Consultative Group, which had elements of a TRC and recommends further like-minded actions through the Legacy Commission, is the first step in transitional justice in Northern Ireland and can be an effective one.

Works Cited

“Bloody Sunday inquiry costs £181m.” BBC News. BBC, 20 Feb. 2008. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7254911.stm>.

Bloomfield, Kenneth. Rep. Northern Ireland Memorial Fund, 2004. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.nimf.org.uk/bloomfield.pdf>.

Boyle, Kevin, and Tom Hadden. “The Peace Process in Northern Ireland.” International Affairs 71.2 (1995): 269-83. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2623434>.

Campbell, Colm, and Ita Connolly. “A Model for the ‘War against Terrorism’? Military Intervention in Northern Ireland and the 1970 Falls Curfew.” Journal of Law and Society 30.3 (2003): 341-75. JSTOR. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1410535>.

Campbell, Colm, Fionnaula Ní Aoláin, and Colin Harvey. “The Frontiers of Legal Analysis: Reframing the Transition in Northern Ireland.” Modern Law Review 66.3 (2003): 317-45. JSTOR. Web. 24 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1097560>.

“Collusion inquiry may take two years.” BBC News. BBC, 10 June 2002. Web. 25 Oct. 2009. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/2037261.stm>.

Connolly, Christopher. “Living on the Past: The Role of Truth Commissions in Post-Conflict Societies and the Case Study of Northern Ireland.” Cornell International Law Journal 39 (2006): 401-34. Hein Online. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.heinonline.org.floyd.lib.umn.edu/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/cintl39&id=1&size=2&collection=journals&index=journals/cintl>.

Doherty, Paul, and Michael A. Poole. “Ethnic Residential Segregation in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1971-1991.” Geographical Review 87.4 (1997): 520-36. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/215229>.

Eames, Robin, and Denis Bradley. Executive Summary. Rep. Consultative Group on the Past, 28 Jan. 2009. Web. 17 Oct. 2009. <http://www.cgpni.org>.

Eames, Robin, and Denis Bradley. Full Report. Rep. Consultative Group on the Past, 28 Jan. 2009. Web. 17 Oct. 2009. <http://www.cgpni.org>.

Grove, Andrea K., and Neal A. Carter. “Not All Blarney Is Cast in Stone: International Cultural Conflict in Northern Ireland.” Political Psychology 20.4 (1999): 725-65. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3792193>.

Kuusisto-Arponen, Anna-Kaisa. “The End of Violence and Introduction of ‘Real’ Politics: Tensions in Peaceful Northern Ireland.” Geographiska Annaler 83.3 (2001): 121-30. JSTOR. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/491073>.

Lloyd, John. “Ireland’s Uncertain Peace.” Foreign Affairs 77.5 (1998): 109-22. JSTOR. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/20049054>.

Mac Iver, Martha A., and Emily H. Bauermeister. “Bridging the Religious Divide: Mobilizing for Reconciliation in Northern Ireland.” Review of Religious Research 32.2 (1990): 135-50. JSTOR. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3511761>.

Massimino, Elisa. Speech. Northern Ireland Human Rights : Update on the Cory Collusion Hearings. House Subcommittee On Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations, Washington, DC. 16 Mar. 2005. Human Rights First, 16 Mar. 2005. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/defenders/hrd_n_ireland/HIRC-collusion-031605.pdf>.

Munck, Ronnie. “The Making of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.” Journal of Contemporary History 27.2 (1992): 211-29. JSTOR. Web. 26 Oct. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/260908>.

“Northern Ireland: Legacies of 40 years of violence -.” International Center for Transitional Justice. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://www.ictj.org/en/news/features/2269.html>.

Reiter, Andrew G. Transitional Justice Data Base Project. University of Wisconsin, 3 Apr. 2009. Web. 27 Oct. 2009. <http://users.polisci.wisc.edu/tjdb/bib.htm>.