Part III - The Case for a United Ireland in International Law

Published: 12 August, 2005

II. The Case for a United Ireland in International Law

Dublin Makes the Case for A UNITED IRELAND

As the crisis in the north deepened in the late 1960’s, the Dublin government sought to intervene on behalf of its people in the north at the United Nations.  The approach they took was not only humanitarian, but one of National Sovereignty.  As Ireland’s Minister of External Affairs told the United Nations Security Council in 1969:

“Partition was accomplished by the British Government as a concession to an intransigent minority with the Irish nations.  Ireland was divided as a result of an Act of the British Parliament in 1920, for which not one Irish vote, either North of South, was cast ... an Act which explicitly contemplated the reunion of Ireland.”

The Irish Republic’s “Letter of Request” sent to the UN Security Council, dated 17 August 1969, opened with the observation:

“Since Ireland was admitted the United Nations in 1955, the Irish delegation has frequently referred to the outstanding problem of national reunification.”

In the same letter, Irish Ambassador to the UN, C. C. Cremin, stated that Ireland “cannot tolerate the tensions created along the border which separates part of Ireland from the area of our present effective jurisdiction.”

During the ensuing debate in which the British claimed that what it did in the north of Ireland was within “its domestic jurisdiction,” Patrick Hillary, then Minister of External Affairs and future President of Republic of Ireland asserted:

“Although we in Ireland have lived for some time with the reality of British control of the North of our country, we do not in any way concede to them the right to exercise jurisdiction there.

“What happened there can never be a matter if indifference of unconcern to people living in the independent past of our national territory, particularly at a time when our compatriots in the North are driven to seek refuge with us, as many of them are now doing.  What happens there can also vitally affect our relations with Great Britain.

“The Six Counties, after all, do not constitute a geographically isolated area, but are an integral part of the island of Ireland and an important part of a country which throughout history has been universally regarded as one unit.

“This historic unity of Ireland is so self-evident as not to require argument.  The claim of the Irish nation to control the totality of Ireland has been asserted over the centuries by successive generations of Irish men and woman, and it is one which no spokesman for the Irish nation could ever renounce.

“ The representative of Great Britain is certainly aware that that claim has been asserted and sustained without interruption up to the present day, and it has never been conceded that a unilateral action on the part of the British Government could sunder an entity which nature and history have made one.”

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights was signed and ratified by the both the British and Irish Governments. 

Common Article 1 of each Covenant reads:

1.   All peoples have the right to self-determination.  By virtue of that right they freely determine their economic, social and cultural development...

3.  The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

British Impose a Non-Self-Governing Territory

It can be forcefully argued that Britain in imposing direct rule on the north of Ireland in the early 1970s, uninterrupted until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, and with the re-imposition of British direct rule four times since by suspending the power sharing Assembly established by the GFA - the last incident continuing to the present time since December 2002, that Britain has thereby created a Non-Self-Governing Territory in its occupation and rule over the north of Ireland. 

The current suspensions and impositions of direct rule have been unilateral.  The GFA was signed by the Republic of Ireland and the UK with full help and support from the US acting an honest broker between the parties. 

There is little doubt that international legal cases could have been brought against the British government for violating an international treaty in taking direct rule over the Six Counties post GFA without approval of the signatories to that accord.  The Irish government have neither protested nor appealed.  

General Assembly Resolution 154

Clearly, the Six Counties situation falls under General Assembly Resolution 1541 of 1960 requiring Member States to answer for its actions in an occupied territory if pressed by a UN Member State.  Dublin requested and London refused.

Resolution 154:

“Principle IV.  Prima facie there is an obligation to transmit information in respect of a territory which is geographically separate and is distinct ethnically and or culturally from the country administering it.

“Principle V.  Once it has been established that a prima facie case of geographical and ethnical or cultural distinctness of a territory exists, other elements may be, inter alia, of an administrative, political, judicial, economic or historic nature.  If they affect the relationship between the metropolitan State and the territory concerned in an manner which arbitrarily place the latter in a position or status of subordination, they support the presumption that there is an obligation to transmit information under Article 73[e] of the Charter.”

Therefore, Britain should be be required to defend in theory its “subordination” of the Six counties, as well as its methods, including colluding to kill and summary execution of its subordinated “citizens”.

Invoking the Right of People to Self Determination in the Context of Ireland

In 1985, Maitre Alain Fenet, lecturer at the University of Picardy, France, outlined in a paper presented to the International conference of Lawyers for Ireland titled “Invoking the Right of People to Self Determination in the Context of Ireland” the case for the reunification of Ireland under international law:

“Reunification would be in line with the contemporary historical trend, which favors the reconstitution of political units established by history.

“The reunification of Ireland would simply be a further example of the right of peoples to self-determination which was recognized by the League of Nations...”

Unionist Rights

Then in a reference to northern Unionists, Professor Fenet added:

“The desires of local populations cannot serve to justify breaking up a country, but if they form a clearly separate community their interest must be guaranteed and they may have the right to specific protection.

“When Ireland is viewed in the light of these considerations, we may conclude that the Protestant population of Ulster has no legal right to insist on the partition of Ireland and likewise no right to oppose its reunification, in return it does have standing to demand guarantees for the preservation of its interests, of its rights and beliefs, in a United Ireland.”

A State in a “Permanent state of Emergency” is not a State

Numerous international lawyers associations and human/civil right organizations have condemned the impact of draconian laws which have been enacted to try to control the situation in the north of Ireland in the name of restoring law and order.   Characterized as “Emergency” measures and “Temporary Provisions”, they have been reaffirmed year after year for over 30 years and are still being applied, including the denial of the right to silence, denial of the right to a jury trial [Diplock court “trials” in the north of Ireland are heard before one judge and no jury], suspension of habeas corpus including being held incommunicado for 48 hours without access to a lawyer and up to 7 days without charge,  and drastic changes in rules of evidence and the presumption of innocence.

These statutes include include:  the Northern Ireland [Emergency Provisions] Acts, applicable in the Six Counties only;  the Prevention of Terrorism [Temporary Provisions] Acts, applicable throughout the UK; and the Offenses Against the State Act, applicable only in the Republic of Ireland.  An emergence is defined as “a sudden and unexpected occurrence.”  These laws are permanent and are apparently necessary to hold together a Statelet that is untenable.

The Final Word: Chaplain of the British House of Commons, the Anglican Bishop of Salisbury

The final word belongs to the Chaplain of the House of Commons, the Anglican Bishop of Salisbury, Most Reverend Dr. John Baker, who perhaps best makes the case for a United Ireland:   “Our injustice created the situation:  and by constantly repeating that we will maintain it so long as the majority wish it, we actively inhibit Protestant and Catholic from working out a new future together.”

The Reverend Dr. Baker said:

“In 1980, at the time of the first hunger strike in Long Kesh prison, the Chaplain of the House of Commons, the Anglican Bishop of Salisbury, Most Reverend Dr. John Baker, told the Members of the British House of Commons:

“No British government ought ever to forget that this perilous moment, like so many before it, is the outworking of a history for which our country is primarily responsible.  England seized Ireland for its own military benefit.  It planted Protestant settlers there to make it strategically secure.  it humiliated and penalized the native Irish and their Catholic religion;  and then, when it could no longer hold on to the whole island, it kept back part to be a home for the settlers’ descendants, a nonviable solution from which Protestants have suffered as much as anyone.

“Our injustice created the situation:  and by constantly repeating that we will maintain it so long as the majority wish it, we actively inhibit Protestant and Catholic from working out a new future together.  This is the root of violence, and the reason why the protesters think of themselves a political offenders.”