ABSTRACT
The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement signed in Belfast in 1998, and still in a process of development, is one of a number of peace agreements emerging from apparently intractable conflicts, since the end of the cold war. This chapter focuses on a relatively unexamined aspect of the Agreement - the international relevance of its innovative provisions on equality of citizenship and internationalised governance and the means by which it links the equality issues of citizenship to constitutional questions. Until the ending of the Cold War there was also minimal international pressure for a resolution of the Northern Ireland conflict. The USSR saw little advantage in intervening and the USA was unwilling to challenge its most important North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally - Britain. The chapter discusses the parameters for such external intervention or specific elements for peace agreements on a global scale, but the Northern Ireland case does provide some indications of the important elements.
