Britain's continued occupation and partition of our country contravenes these Covenants.
The repression and partition of Ireland also contravenes The United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. (Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 14th December 1960).
Article 4 states:
"All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected".
Article 6 states:
"Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations."
In an attempt to modernise partition, the London and Dublin Governments are proposing to hold joint referenda on both sides of the Irish border. We reject the legitimacy of these referenda. We hold that Britain has no right to determine the future of Ireland as a sovereign nation.
Conclusions
The Irish people have a right to self-determination; free from outside interference; and with the territorial integrity of our country respected.
The conflict in Ireland is not an international dispute where the two claims can be argued to be equal, but a clear violation of the sovereignty of an Independent Nation. As a result of this, armed insurgency has been pursued over centuries.
We now call upon the International Community to assist us to avoid further bloodshed.
We append a letter to Mr. M. Clemenceau, #[8] at The League of Nations, Paris dated, February 22nd 1919 to show that Ireland has sought international assistance by peaceful means on every occasion.
It is this denial of the right of the Irish people to self determination and national sovereignty and Britain’s continued colonial interference that contravenes the covenants and declarations of the United Nations.
We, the 32 County Sovereignty Committee respectfully petition the United Nations to investigate these breaches of UN covenants and issue an appropriate ruling.
In the light of our claim to national sovereignty, as outlined in our Declaration Of Independence, we further petition the United Nations to uphold our right to national sovereignty and end Britain's denial of that right.
APPENDIX A
Declaration of Independence
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people:
And whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation;
And whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people;
An whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army, acting on behalf of the Irish people;
And whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to secure and maintain the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to ensure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to constitute a national policy based upon the peoples will, with equal rights for every citizen;
And whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in General Election of December 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic;
Now therefore, we, the elected Representatives of the ancient Irish people in national Parliament assembled, do in the name of the Irish people, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command;
We ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give allegiance;
We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison;
We claim for our national independence the recognition the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace thereafter;
In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God Who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask his divine blessing on this last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to freedom.
Dail Eireann, January 21, 1919
APPENDIX B
POBLACHT NA H-ÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Irish Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish Nation must, by its valour and discipline and the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government
Tomás Ó Cléirigh........Seán Mac Diarmada
Tomás Mac Donncha....Pádraig Mac Piarais
Seosamh Pluincéad.......Séamas Ó Conghaile
Eamonn Ceannt............Dublin 1916
APPENDIX C
Letter to M. Clemenceau, 1919.
The following is a letter from the Irish Republican Delegate at Paris to Premier Clemenceau and all the Peace Conference delegates, claiming for Ireland admission to the League of nations as a Constituent member:
Paris, February 22, 1919.
Sir: As the accredited envoy of the Government of the Irish Republic, I have the honour to bring to you notice the claim of my Government, in the name of the Irish nation, for international recognition of the independence of Ireland, and for the admission of Ireland as a constituent member of the League of Nations.
The Irish people seized the opportunity of the general election of December, 1918, to declare unmistakably its national will; only in 26 (out of 105) constituencies of the country was England able to find enough ‘loyalists’ to return members favourable to the union between Ireland and Great Britain; for the remaining 79 seats the electors choose as members men who believed in self-determination; of these 73, who now represent an immense majority of the people, went forward as republican candidates, and each of these republican members has pledged to assert by every means in his power the right of Ireland to complete independence which she demands, under a national republican government, free from all English interference.
On the 21st of January, 1919, those of the Republican members whom England had not yet cast into her prisons met in the Irish capital in a national assembly, to which, as the only Irish Parliament de jure, they had summoned all Irish members of Parliament; on the same day the national assembly unanimously voted the declaration of independence appended hereto and unanimously issued the message to the free peoples likewise appended.
The national assembly has also caused a detailed statement of the case of Ireland to be drawn up. That statement will demonstrate that the right of Ireland to be considered a nation admits of no denial, and, moreover, that that right is inferior in no respect to that of the new states constituted in Europe and recognised since the war; three members, Eamon de Valera, Mr. Arthur Griffith and Count Plunkett, have been delegated by the national assembly to present the statement to the Peace Conference and to the League of Nations Commission in the name of the Irish people.
Accordingly, I have the honour, sir, to beg you to be good enough to fix a date to receive the delegates above named, who are anxious for the earliest possible opportunity to establish formally and definitely before the Peace Conference and the League of Nations Commission, now assembled in Paris, Ireland’s indisputable rights to international recognition for her independence and the propriety of her claim to enter the League of Nations as one of its constituent members.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Sean T. O’Kelly,
ADDENDUM
to the
SUBMISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS
Submitted by the
32 COUNTY SOVEREIGNTY COMMITTEE
on
30 April 1998
We hereby elaborate on the areas outlined in our initial petition (lodged with the United Nations, New York, on 30 April 1998) for scrutiny of breaches by Britain of UN Covenants (as outlined in the Nature of Application of the said petition), and requesting the United Nations to uphold Ireland’s fundamental right to national sovereignty, ending Britain's denial of that right.
In addition, we now offer an update on the process in practice following the implementation of The Belfast Agreement (which came into force in December 1999, having been lodged as the British/Irish Agreement), subsequently establishing a devolved British administration at Stormont. Furthermore, we highlight, in both legal and moral terms, the consequences of implementing this British led arrangement that was falsely sold as a settlement of the conflict between Ireland and Britain.
The Belfast Agreement, most assuredly, has not brought the peace and stability promised by those party to the said agreement - rather, there has been a steady upsurge in violence. Furthermore, the unilateral brief suspension of the ‘Legislative Assembly’ by the British Westminster Parliament, has led to growing concern from all sections of society in Ireland as a whole, varying from uneasiness and frustration to scepticism and betrayal, manifested on a daily basis.
The illumination of the more recent violations of Human Rights and Principles, supported by reference to International Covenants, precedents, informed academic research and alternative debate, presents a convincing argument to the UN to pursue an alternative route not yet tested in relation to Ireland. We therefore, strongly urge the United Nations to bring pressure upon the British Government to relinquish its De Jure claim of sovereignty over a part of Ireland, which ultimately would allow for an Enablement Act that would embrace a mechanism to secure and solidify the sovereignty of Ireland
OVERVIEW
1. The actual Belfast Agreement had to be acceptable to, and ratified by, an external political power, viz. Britain, before it was presented to the Irish people for acceptance or rejection. In effect, this external political entity had the power of veto over the sovereignty of the Irish people. The referenda, in relation to the Belfast Agreement, were not an exercise in the expression of self-determination, as the political package on offer was subordinate to Britain's approval.
2. The entire political process was restricted to the parameters laid down by The Downing Street Declaration, The Framework Document and The Mitchell Principles. The Downing Street Declaration enshrined a set of principles, which were the foundations upon which all subsequent political negotiations and possible settlement were to be based. The paramount principle espoused in this document, to which all participants in future talks had to pledge their adherence and commitment, was the so called principle of consent, which was in effect the Unionist veto over the rights of the vast majority of the Irish people in their pursuit of a unitary state. The Framework Document was the skeletal outline of the political settlement that would emerge from the talks process. It was crystal clear that the political outcome would obviously be partitionist, as any settlement was confined to the Document's parameters. Therefore, all participants to the process were committed to partition before the talks commenced, which was in effect a negation of an expression of self-determination and Irish sovereignty. This position was further underlined by the acceptance of The Mitchell Principles.
One of the clauses demanded that those adherents to the Principles pledge themselves to accept the political settlement that emerged from the talks process, which inevitably would be partitionist. In addition, the political package, which emanated from the talks, would be presented to the Irish people in separate referenda, with the Six County referendum having the power of veto over that to be held in the Twenty Six Counties. This was the completion of Tony Blair's ‘triple-lock’, which was designed to secure the constitutional position of the Six Counties as an integral part of the United Kingdom. Acceptance of a political talks process, built upon the principles enshrined in the Downing Street Declaration, confined to the parameters of the Framework Document, underlined by commitment to the Mitchell Principles, and subject to the outcome of separate referenda (of which the vote in the Six Counties was paramount), was not an exercise in self-determination, but instead, was a copper-fastening of partition. Subsequently, Tony Blair constantly heralded the fact to the Unionists and the British public that he had settled and secured the constitutional position of Northern Ireland (sic.) within the United Kingdom. Politically this assertion was accurate.
3. The Belfast Agreement is the latest instalment in a joint British/Dublin Government strategy that stretches back to 1972. The autumn of that year witnessed a fundamental change in British policy concerning the situation in the occupied Six Counties and future relations with Leinster House, the seat of government for the Twenty Six Counties. Only twelve months earlier in September 1971, British Prime Minister Edward Heath had contemptuously dismissed Jack Lynch's Government's concerns about the deteriorating situation in the North and the ill treatment of internees with the blunt assertion that what happened in an integral part of the United Kingdom (sic.) was none of the Dublin Government's business. The massive escalation of violence in the interim period led to a fundamental re-appraisal of the situation from the British Government's perspective.
In future, the Westminster Government would commit itself to a strategy of power sharing in the Six Counties between Unionist and Nationalist political representatives and recognition of the 'Irish Dimension' to the problem, which would involve a CONSULTATIVE role for the Dublin Government in the future administration of the North. This process eventually led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, whereby, in return for the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference and the Maryfield Secretariat, the Dublin Government, for the first time in its history, formally recognised the legitimacy of partition (without the authority of the Irish People). Fianna Fail, then in opposition, opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, yet when they were returned to power, they operated its mechanisms because they claimed they were bound by an international treaty that had been lodged at the United Nations and could only be overturned with the approval of the two sovereign governments.
The Belfast Agreement is a continuation and extension of the three-stranded approach in which the Unionist minority in Ireland and an external political power i.e. Britain, have a pivotal role in thwarting Irish sovereignty. The present North-South bodies, set up under The Belfast Agreement, are subordinate to the views of the Stormont Assembly, which has a Unionist majority, and in effect, results in the curtailment of the combined views of the elected representatives of the Twenty Six Counties and the Northern Nationalist parties, by the political representatives of a national minority. This is the inbuilt mechanism of the Unionist veto in operation again.
4. The entire process has been an exercise in modernising, updating and securing British rule in the Six Counties. Evidence of where the real political power continues to lie was provided by the suspension of the Stormont Assembly by Secretary of State Peter Mandelson in February 2000. Despite the media hype concerning the operation of the Stormont Executive, their activities are confined to the parameters of a budget allocated by the British Treasury. All major political decisions and policies are formulated by the Westminster Government and the Stormont Assembly does not have the power to implement any radical new social or economic policies. The coming weeks and months may see a further demonstration of where the real political power continues to reside, with a possible further suspension, review of the Agreement or perhaps its total eclipse.
5. The Belfast Agreement, in clause 2, under the heading Constitutional Issues, states: "the participants also note that the two Governments have accordingly undertaken in the context of this comprehensive political agreement, to propose and support changes in, respectively, the Constitution of Ireland and in British legislation relating to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland."
This was an attempt by the two Governments to present the abolition of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution as a quid pro quo for the removal of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (known to Irish people as the 'Partition Cut') from the Statute Book. This was a classic case of political deception on the part of Westminster and Leinster House, as it is a basic political and historical fact that, in relation to the partition of Ireland, the 1920 Government of Ireland Act had already been made redundant by subsequent legislation which superimposed it, viz. the 1949 (Ireland) Act, the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement and the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, it was possible that the constitutional position of the Six Counties could have been changed by legislation at Westminster. The 1949 (Ireland) Act, however, stated that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland (sic). could not be changed without the consent of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland (sic). This in effect was the constitutional embodiment of the Unionist veto. This Act was endorsed by the 1973 Act and further amended by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement in which for the first time the Dublin Government accepted the legitimacy of partition. The manner in which the Dublin Government, opposition parties and the Northern Nationalist parties, who supported The Belfast Agreement, presented the deletion of Articles 2 and 3 as a quid pro quo for the removal of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, was nothing less than a confidence trick.
6. It is evident to even the most casual observer of the Irish political scene that The Belfast Agreement has failed to deliver on one of its main objectives viz. the eradication of politically motivated or sectarian violence. The ongoing orchestrated campaign of pipe-bomb attacks against the Nationalist and, indeed, the Catholic Community in the towns of Larne, Carrickfergus, Ballymoney, Ballymena, Coleraine, Lisburn and North Belfast by a loyalist paramilitary organisation i.e. the Ulster Defence Association, which purports to support The Belfast Agreement, makes a complete and total mockery of the so called 'Peace Process', as, indeed, did the vicious and murderous feud between the aforementioned group and the Ulster Volunteer Force, another loyalist paramilitary organisation which campaigned for a 'Yes' vote in the 1998 referendum.
Republican opposition to The Belfast Agreement has been met with dire warnings, from both the British and Dublin Governments, of the imminent use of draconian repressive legislation and the recent removal of political status for Republican prisoners.
Somewhat ominously, the murder of Joseph O'Connor because of his open political opposition to The Belfast Agreement, was met by a deafening silence by all those political groupings noted for their previous haste in condemning politically motivated violence viz. The Dublin Government and opposition parties, the Catholic Church, the S.D.L.P.
In 1973, when a Border Poll was held in the Six Counties, Republicans and Nationalists were urged to boycott what was seen as a ‘foregone conclusion’ because the poll was not conducted on an all-Ireland basis. Yet, in 1998, Sinn Fein campaigned for a 'Yes' vote for a partitionist Agreement. The position of that party has changed dramatically in accepting the parameters of The Framework Document, The Mitchell Principles. Furthermore, the S.D.L.P are in direct contravention to the position they took in relation to the 1973 poll, which they rejected and boycotted on the grounds that it was the product of a sectarian gerrymander and automatically partitionist. The same criteria applied to The Downing Street Declaration, and The Mitchell Principles. Once these were entered into, the outcome was obvious since all were mechanisms whereby a partitionist settlement would be cemented. The Sovereignty of Ireland was not on the political agenda. Evidence to support the overall analyses is encapsulated in Appendices I to V.
APPENDIX I: SOVEREIGNTY AND THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
Sean Lemass, as Taoiseach in 1959, had no qualms in relation to defining Nationhood:
"…it is, indeed, the simple truth that Ireland is one nation, in its history, in its geography and in its people, entitled to have its essential unity expressed in its political institutions... Ireland is, by every test, one nation. It is on that essential unity that we found our case for political integration..." (ref: 'One Nation, Fianna Fail', Sean Lemass, Dublin , 1959, pp.4-14). The Irish Constitution as adopted in 1937, conceived Ireland as a sovereign State whose sovereignty derived from the authority of the nation and the people. Article 1 of the Irish Constitution states:
"The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible and sovereign right to choose its own form of Government, to determine its relations with other nations, and to develop its life, political, economic and cultural, in accordance with its own genius and traditions.."
Article 5 states: "Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state."
Article 6 states: "1. All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good. 2. These powers of government are exercisable only by or on the authority of the organs of State established by this Constitution."
The Preamble states: "…we, the people of Eire, do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution." The significance in emphasising these Articles is that the Irish courts have relied on these and the Preamble as establishing that sovereignty is vested in the people, who act through the State (examples are in the rulings of Judges Walsh in Webb v. Ireland (1988) IR 353 and Budd in Byrne v. Ireland (1972) IR 241). While Budd stressed that it was the people who were paramount and not the State, Walsh referred to Article 5 whereby the State was not subject to any power of government save those designated by the people in the Constitution itself, and that the State was not amenable to any EXTERNAL AUTHORITY for its conduct. These rulings help to underpin the issues raised in the OVERVIEW particularly in relation to his closing sentence.
At no stage did the Government of Britain recognise Irish national sovereignty, even though references to self-determination had appeared in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 and again in modified form in the Framework Documents of 1996. London and Dublin managed only separate statements for application to Ireland:
'The British Government recognise that it is for the people of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts, respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish; the Irish Government accept that the democratic right of self-determination by the people of Ireland as a whole must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.' (ref:Framework Documents, part II, para.16).
In fact, by agreement between the two parts, this underlines the Unionist Veto; it is NOT a declaration of the right of the Irish people to self-determination.
Article 1 of the Irish Constitution describes the sovereign rights of the nation as being "inalienable" and "indefeasible". Judge Kenny in Ryan v. Attorney General defined inalienable as "that which cannot be transferred or given away" (ref: 1965 IR 294).
The Supreme Court in turn observed that one of the theories underlying Articles 1-3 of the Constitution:
“…was that a nation, as distinct from a State, had rights; ...that a nation has a right to unity of territory in some form. and that the Government of Ireland Act 1920, though legally binding, was a violation of that right to national unity which was superior to positive law.” (ref: 1977 IR 129)
The British Government was slow to adopt the right of self-determination in its foreign policy (even though the 1966 ICCPR and ICESCR international covenants on human rights entered into force in 1976) although it did conditionally grant independence to 28 states between 1960 and 1982, this being invariably described by a legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a 'political principle'. (ref: British Yearbook of International Law, Oxford 1984, p.400)
Indeed this lack of enthusiasm for implementation of major legislation has not gone unnoticed. One observer notes that the Human Rights Act of 1998 was ‘a response to a growing sense of unease, discomfort and astonishment', referring to the contradiction noted particularly in political and legal circles, that the UK could have played such a major part, over more than half a century, in assuring fundamental rights and freedoms in other states, without having achieved the same in its dealings with Ireland. It is further argued: “Perhaps nowhere has this strange imbalance been more marked than in respect of the UK's position, internationally and internally, with regard to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.” (Cmnd 8969). The British Government was heavily involved in the drafting of the European Convention, was one of the first to sign it in 1950, and was the first to ratify it in 1951. Since 1966 the UK has also accepted the right of individuals to petition the Strasbourg authorities in respect of alleged breaches of the Convention. Yet the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the state as obligations in internal law were not, themselves, part of, or actionable within, the domestic legal system. (ref: Human Rights Act 1998: A Practitioner's Guide, Baker, London, 1998 Chp.1: 1-02).
In general terms, sovereignty has an internal and external meaning. Internally it means the right to make laws within the state frontiers to the exclusion of other authorities, and to take any necessary steps to enforce those laws. Externally, it means the right of a state to take part on a level of legal or formal equality with other members of the states-system. The possession of sovereignty distinguishes a state from other political entities such as colonies, protectorates, trusteeships or other forms of dependent territories.
Sovereignty, or the recognition of the independence of a territorial entity, has to be generally recognised by other states before that entity is accepted as a member of the states-system, and can engage in diplomacy and enter into legal contracts with other member states, and have its legal rights respected as established by international law. Given the scope and range of areas covered by this definition, the consequences of a denial of sovereignty are all too apparent. The principle was deemed so vital to humanity that it was enshrined in The Declaration of the Rights of Man. This major document was drawn up by the National Assembly, which met at the start of the French Revolution in 1789 and was to provide the basis for the Constitution. It was modelled on the American Declaration of Independence and also reflected the influence of Rousseau's ideas. The following are some prominent and essential pointers to its significance:
“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” (Art.1); The natural rights of man are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression. (Art.II); The principle of ALL SOVEREIGNTY resides essentially in the nation. No body and no individual can exercise authority if it does not take its origin from the nation. (Art.III); Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take a part personally or through their representatives in its formation. (Art.VI); The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. (Art.XI). (ref: Political Studies, C.A. Leeds, Plymouth, 1981, pp.44-5.).
The repression and partition of Ireland also contravenes The United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. (Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 14th December 1960).
Article 4 states:
"All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected".
Article 6 states:
"Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations."
In an attempt to modernise partition, the London and Dublin Governments are proposing to hold joint referenda on both sides of the Irish border. We reject the legitimacy of these referenda. We hold that Britain has no right to determine the future of Ireland as a sovereign nation.
Conclusions
The Irish people have a right to self-determination; free from outside interference; and with the territorial integrity of our country respected.
The conflict in Ireland is not an international dispute where the two claims can be argued to be equal, but a clear violation of the sovereignty of an Independent Nation. As a result of this, armed insurgency has been pursued over centuries.
We now call upon the International Community to assist us to avoid further bloodshed.
We append a letter to Mr. M. Clemenceau, #[8] at The League of Nations, Paris dated, February 22nd 1919 to show that Ireland has sought international assistance by peaceful means on every occasion.
It is this denial of the right of the Irish people to self determination and national sovereignty and Britain’s continued colonial interference that contravenes the covenants and declarations of the United Nations.
We, the 32 County Sovereignty Committee respectfully petition the United Nations to investigate these breaches of UN covenants and issue an appropriate ruling.
In the light of our claim to national sovereignty, as outlined in our Declaration Of Independence, we further petition the United Nations to uphold our right to national sovereignty and end Britain's denial of that right.
APPENDIX A
Declaration of Independence
Whereas the Irish people is by right a free people:
And whereas for seven hundred years the Irish people has never ceased to repudiate and repeatedly protested in arms against foreign usurpation;
And whereas English rule in this country is, and always has been, based upon force and fraud and maintained by military occupation against the declared will of the people;
An whereas the Irish Republic was proclaimed in Dublin on Easter Monday, 1916, by the Irish Republican Army, acting on behalf of the Irish people;
And whereas the Irish people is resolved to secure and maintain its complete independence in order to secure and maintain the common weal, to re-establish justice, to provide for future defence, to ensure peace at home and good will with all nations, and to constitute a national policy based upon the peoples will, with equal rights for every citizen;
And whereas at the threshold of a new era in history the Irish electorate has in General Election of December 1918, seized the first occasion to declare by an overwhelming majority its firm allegiance to the Irish Republic;
Now therefore, we, the elected Representatives of the ancient Irish people in national Parliament assembled, do in the name of the Irish people, ratify the establishment of the Irish Republic and pledge ourselves and our people to make this declaration effective by every means at our command;
We ordain that the elected Representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish Parliament is the only Parliament to which that people will give allegiance;
We solemnly declare foreign government in Ireland to be an invasion of our national right which we will never tolerate, and we demand the evacuation of our country by the English Garrison;
We claim for our national independence the recognition the recognition and support of every free nation in the world, and we proclaim that independence to be a condition precedent to international peace thereafter;
In the name of the Irish people we humbly commit our destiny to Almighty God Who gave our fathers the courage and determination to persevere through long centuries of ruthless tyranny, and strong in the justice of the cause which they have handed down to us, we ask his divine blessing on this last stage of the struggle we have pledged ourselves to carry through to freedom.
Dail Eireann, January 21, 1919
APPENDIX B
POBLACHT NA H-ÉIREANN
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Irish Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish Nation must, by its valour and discipline and the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government
Tomás Ó Cléirigh........Seán Mac Diarmada
Tomás Mac Donncha....Pádraig Mac Piarais
Seosamh Pluincéad.......Séamas Ó Conghaile
Eamonn Ceannt............Dublin 1916
APPENDIX C
Letter to M. Clemenceau, 1919.
The following is a letter from the Irish Republican Delegate at Paris to Premier Clemenceau and all the Peace Conference delegates, claiming for Ireland admission to the League of nations as a Constituent member:
Paris, February 22, 1919.
Sir: As the accredited envoy of the Government of the Irish Republic, I have the honour to bring to you notice the claim of my Government, in the name of the Irish nation, for international recognition of the independence of Ireland, and for the admission of Ireland as a constituent member of the League of Nations.
The Irish people seized the opportunity of the general election of December, 1918, to declare unmistakably its national will; only in 26 (out of 105) constituencies of the country was England able to find enough ‘loyalists’ to return members favourable to the union between Ireland and Great Britain; for the remaining 79 seats the electors choose as members men who believed in self-determination; of these 73, who now represent an immense majority of the people, went forward as republican candidates, and each of these republican members has pledged to assert by every means in his power the right of Ireland to complete independence which she demands, under a national republican government, free from all English interference.
On the 21st of January, 1919, those of the Republican members whom England had not yet cast into her prisons met in the Irish capital in a national assembly, to which, as the only Irish Parliament de jure, they had summoned all Irish members of Parliament; on the same day the national assembly unanimously voted the declaration of independence appended hereto and unanimously issued the message to the free peoples likewise appended.
The national assembly has also caused a detailed statement of the case of Ireland to be drawn up. That statement will demonstrate that the right of Ireland to be considered a nation admits of no denial, and, moreover, that that right is inferior in no respect to that of the new states constituted in Europe and recognised since the war; three members, Eamon de Valera, Mr. Arthur Griffith and Count Plunkett, have been delegated by the national assembly to present the statement to the Peace Conference and to the League of Nations Commission in the name of the Irish people.
Accordingly, I have the honour, sir, to beg you to be good enough to fix a date to receive the delegates above named, who are anxious for the earliest possible opportunity to establish formally and definitely before the Peace Conference and the League of Nations Commission, now assembled in Paris, Ireland’s indisputable rights to international recognition for her independence and the propriety of her claim to enter the League of Nations as one of its constituent members.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Sean T. O’Kelly,
ADDENDUM
to the
SUBMISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS
Submitted by the
32 COUNTY SOVEREIGNTY COMMITTEE
on
30 April 1998
We hereby elaborate on the areas outlined in our initial petition (lodged with the United Nations, New York, on 30 April 1998) for scrutiny of breaches by Britain of UN Covenants (as outlined in the Nature of Application of the said petition), and requesting the United Nations to uphold Ireland’s fundamental right to national sovereignty, ending Britain's denial of that right.
In addition, we now offer an update on the process in practice following the implementation of The Belfast Agreement (which came into force in December 1999, having been lodged as the British/Irish Agreement), subsequently establishing a devolved British administration at Stormont. Furthermore, we highlight, in both legal and moral terms, the consequences of implementing this British led arrangement that was falsely sold as a settlement of the conflict between Ireland and Britain.
The Belfast Agreement, most assuredly, has not brought the peace and stability promised by those party to the said agreement - rather, there has been a steady upsurge in violence. Furthermore, the unilateral brief suspension of the ‘Legislative Assembly’ by the British Westminster Parliament, has led to growing concern from all sections of society in Ireland as a whole, varying from uneasiness and frustration to scepticism and betrayal, manifested on a daily basis.
The illumination of the more recent violations of Human Rights and Principles, supported by reference to International Covenants, precedents, informed academic research and alternative debate, presents a convincing argument to the UN to pursue an alternative route not yet tested in relation to Ireland. We therefore, strongly urge the United Nations to bring pressure upon the British Government to relinquish its De Jure claim of sovereignty over a part of Ireland, which ultimately would allow for an Enablement Act that would embrace a mechanism to secure and solidify the sovereignty of Ireland
OVERVIEW
1. The actual Belfast Agreement had to be acceptable to, and ratified by, an external political power, viz. Britain, before it was presented to the Irish people for acceptance or rejection. In effect, this external political entity had the power of veto over the sovereignty of the Irish people. The referenda, in relation to the Belfast Agreement, were not an exercise in the expression of self-determination, as the political package on offer was subordinate to Britain's approval.
2. The entire political process was restricted to the parameters laid down by The Downing Street Declaration, The Framework Document and The Mitchell Principles. The Downing Street Declaration enshrined a set of principles, which were the foundations upon which all subsequent political negotiations and possible settlement were to be based. The paramount principle espoused in this document, to which all participants in future talks had to pledge their adherence and commitment, was the so called principle of consent, which was in effect the Unionist veto over the rights of the vast majority of the Irish people in their pursuit of a unitary state. The Framework Document was the skeletal outline of the political settlement that would emerge from the talks process. It was crystal clear that the political outcome would obviously be partitionist, as any settlement was confined to the Document's parameters. Therefore, all participants to the process were committed to partition before the talks commenced, which was in effect a negation of an expression of self-determination and Irish sovereignty. This position was further underlined by the acceptance of The Mitchell Principles.
One of the clauses demanded that those adherents to the Principles pledge themselves to accept the political settlement that emerged from the talks process, which inevitably would be partitionist. In addition, the political package, which emanated from the talks, would be presented to the Irish people in separate referenda, with the Six County referendum having the power of veto over that to be held in the Twenty Six Counties. This was the completion of Tony Blair's ‘triple-lock’, which was designed to secure the constitutional position of the Six Counties as an integral part of the United Kingdom. Acceptance of a political talks process, built upon the principles enshrined in the Downing Street Declaration, confined to the parameters of the Framework Document, underlined by commitment to the Mitchell Principles, and subject to the outcome of separate referenda (of which the vote in the Six Counties was paramount), was not an exercise in self-determination, but instead, was a copper-fastening of partition. Subsequently, Tony Blair constantly heralded the fact to the Unionists and the British public that he had settled and secured the constitutional position of Northern Ireland (sic.) within the United Kingdom. Politically this assertion was accurate.
3. The Belfast Agreement is the latest instalment in a joint British/Dublin Government strategy that stretches back to 1972. The autumn of that year witnessed a fundamental change in British policy concerning the situation in the occupied Six Counties and future relations with Leinster House, the seat of government for the Twenty Six Counties. Only twelve months earlier in September 1971, British Prime Minister Edward Heath had contemptuously dismissed Jack Lynch's Government's concerns about the deteriorating situation in the North and the ill treatment of internees with the blunt assertion that what happened in an integral part of the United Kingdom (sic.) was none of the Dublin Government's business. The massive escalation of violence in the interim period led to a fundamental re-appraisal of the situation from the British Government's perspective.
In future, the Westminster Government would commit itself to a strategy of power sharing in the Six Counties between Unionist and Nationalist political representatives and recognition of the 'Irish Dimension' to the problem, which would involve a CONSULTATIVE role for the Dublin Government in the future administration of the North. This process eventually led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, whereby, in return for the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference and the Maryfield Secretariat, the Dublin Government, for the first time in its history, formally recognised the legitimacy of partition (without the authority of the Irish People). Fianna Fail, then in opposition, opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, yet when they were returned to power, they operated its mechanisms because they claimed they were bound by an international treaty that had been lodged at the United Nations and could only be overturned with the approval of the two sovereign governments.
The Belfast Agreement is a continuation and extension of the three-stranded approach in which the Unionist minority in Ireland and an external political power i.e. Britain, have a pivotal role in thwarting Irish sovereignty. The present North-South bodies, set up under The Belfast Agreement, are subordinate to the views of the Stormont Assembly, which has a Unionist majority, and in effect, results in the curtailment of the combined views of the elected representatives of the Twenty Six Counties and the Northern Nationalist parties, by the political representatives of a national minority. This is the inbuilt mechanism of the Unionist veto in operation again.
4. The entire process has been an exercise in modernising, updating and securing British rule in the Six Counties. Evidence of where the real political power continues to lie was provided by the suspension of the Stormont Assembly by Secretary of State Peter Mandelson in February 2000. Despite the media hype concerning the operation of the Stormont Executive, their activities are confined to the parameters of a budget allocated by the British Treasury. All major political decisions and policies are formulated by the Westminster Government and the Stormont Assembly does not have the power to implement any radical new social or economic policies. The coming weeks and months may see a further demonstration of where the real political power continues to reside, with a possible further suspension, review of the Agreement or perhaps its total eclipse.
5. The Belfast Agreement, in clause 2, under the heading Constitutional Issues, states: "the participants also note that the two Governments have accordingly undertaken in the context of this comprehensive political agreement, to propose and support changes in, respectively, the Constitution of Ireland and in British legislation relating to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland."
This was an attempt by the two Governments to present the abolition of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution as a quid pro quo for the removal of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (known to Irish people as the 'Partition Cut') from the Statute Book. This was a classic case of political deception on the part of Westminster and Leinster House, as it is a basic political and historical fact that, in relation to the partition of Ireland, the 1920 Government of Ireland Act had already been made redundant by subsequent legislation which superimposed it, viz. the 1949 (Ireland) Act, the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement and the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.
Under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, it was possible that the constitutional position of the Six Counties could have been changed by legislation at Westminster. The 1949 (Ireland) Act, however, stated that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland (sic). could not be changed without the consent of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland (sic). This in effect was the constitutional embodiment of the Unionist veto. This Act was endorsed by the 1973 Act and further amended by the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement in which for the first time the Dublin Government accepted the legitimacy of partition. The manner in which the Dublin Government, opposition parties and the Northern Nationalist parties, who supported The Belfast Agreement, presented the deletion of Articles 2 and 3 as a quid pro quo for the removal of the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, was nothing less than a confidence trick.
6. It is evident to even the most casual observer of the Irish political scene that The Belfast Agreement has failed to deliver on one of its main objectives viz. the eradication of politically motivated or sectarian violence. The ongoing orchestrated campaign of pipe-bomb attacks against the Nationalist and, indeed, the Catholic Community in the towns of Larne, Carrickfergus, Ballymoney, Ballymena, Coleraine, Lisburn and North Belfast by a loyalist paramilitary organisation i.e. the Ulster Defence Association, which purports to support The Belfast Agreement, makes a complete and total mockery of the so called 'Peace Process', as, indeed, did the vicious and murderous feud between the aforementioned group and the Ulster Volunteer Force, another loyalist paramilitary organisation which campaigned for a 'Yes' vote in the 1998 referendum.
Republican opposition to The Belfast Agreement has been met with dire warnings, from both the British and Dublin Governments, of the imminent use of draconian repressive legislation and the recent removal of political status for Republican prisoners.
Somewhat ominously, the murder of Joseph O'Connor because of his open political opposition to The Belfast Agreement, was met by a deafening silence by all those political groupings noted for their previous haste in condemning politically motivated violence viz. The Dublin Government and opposition parties, the Catholic Church, the S.D.L.P.
In 1973, when a Border Poll was held in the Six Counties, Republicans and Nationalists were urged to boycott what was seen as a ‘foregone conclusion’ because the poll was not conducted on an all-Ireland basis. Yet, in 1998, Sinn Fein campaigned for a 'Yes' vote for a partitionist Agreement. The position of that party has changed dramatically in accepting the parameters of The Framework Document, The Mitchell Principles. Furthermore, the S.D.L.P are in direct contravention to the position they took in relation to the 1973 poll, which they rejected and boycotted on the grounds that it was the product of a sectarian gerrymander and automatically partitionist. The same criteria applied to The Downing Street Declaration, and The Mitchell Principles. Once these were entered into, the outcome was obvious since all were mechanisms whereby a partitionist settlement would be cemented. The Sovereignty of Ireland was not on the political agenda. Evidence to support the overall analyses is encapsulated in Appendices I to V.
APPENDIX I: SOVEREIGNTY AND THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
Sean Lemass, as Taoiseach in 1959, had no qualms in relation to defining Nationhood:
"…it is, indeed, the simple truth that Ireland is one nation, in its history, in its geography and in its people, entitled to have its essential unity expressed in its political institutions... Ireland is, by every test, one nation. It is on that essential unity that we found our case for political integration..." (ref: 'One Nation, Fianna Fail', Sean Lemass, Dublin , 1959, pp.4-14). The Irish Constitution as adopted in 1937, conceived Ireland as a sovereign State whose sovereignty derived from the authority of the nation and the people. Article 1 of the Irish Constitution states:
"The Irish nation hereby affirms its inalienable, indefeasible and sovereign right to choose its own form of Government, to determine its relations with other nations, and to develop its life, political, economic and cultural, in accordance with its own genius and traditions.."
Article 5 states: "Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic state."
Article 6 states: "1. All powers of government, legislative, executive and judicial, derive, under God, from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and, in final appeal, to decide all questions of national policy, according to the requirements of the common good. 2. These powers of government are exercisable only by or on the authority of the organs of State established by this Constitution."
The Preamble states: "…we, the people of Eire, do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution." The significance in emphasising these Articles is that the Irish courts have relied on these and the Preamble as establishing that sovereignty is vested in the people, who act through the State (examples are in the rulings of Judges Walsh in Webb v. Ireland (1988) IR 353 and Budd in Byrne v. Ireland (1972) IR 241). While Budd stressed that it was the people who were paramount and not the State, Walsh referred to Article 5 whereby the State was not subject to any power of government save those designated by the people in the Constitution itself, and that the State was not amenable to any EXTERNAL AUTHORITY for its conduct. These rulings help to underpin the issues raised in the OVERVIEW particularly in relation to his closing sentence.
At no stage did the Government of Britain recognise Irish national sovereignty, even though references to self-determination had appeared in the Downing Street Declaration of 1993 and again in modified form in the Framework Documents of 1996. London and Dublin managed only separate statements for application to Ireland:
'The British Government recognise that it is for the people of Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts, respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish; the Irish Government accept that the democratic right of self-determination by the people of Ireland as a whole must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.' (ref:Framework Documents, part II, para.16).
In fact, by agreement between the two parts, this underlines the Unionist Veto; it is NOT a declaration of the right of the Irish people to self-determination.
Article 1 of the Irish Constitution describes the sovereign rights of the nation as being "inalienable" and "indefeasible". Judge Kenny in Ryan v. Attorney General defined inalienable as "that which cannot be transferred or given away" (ref: 1965 IR 294).
The Supreme Court in turn observed that one of the theories underlying Articles 1-3 of the Constitution:
“…was that a nation, as distinct from a State, had rights; ...that a nation has a right to unity of territory in some form. and that the Government of Ireland Act 1920, though legally binding, was a violation of that right to national unity which was superior to positive law.” (ref: 1977 IR 129)
The British Government was slow to adopt the right of self-determination in its foreign policy (even though the 1966 ICCPR and ICESCR international covenants on human rights entered into force in 1976) although it did conditionally grant independence to 28 states between 1960 and 1982, this being invariably described by a legal adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a 'political principle'. (ref: British Yearbook of International Law, Oxford 1984, p.400)
Indeed this lack of enthusiasm for implementation of major legislation has not gone unnoticed. One observer notes that the Human Rights Act of 1998 was ‘a response to a growing sense of unease, discomfort and astonishment', referring to the contradiction noted particularly in political and legal circles, that the UK could have played such a major part, over more than half a century, in assuring fundamental rights and freedoms in other states, without having achieved the same in its dealings with Ireland. It is further argued: “Perhaps nowhere has this strange imbalance been more marked than in respect of the UK's position, internationally and internally, with regard to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.” (Cmnd 8969). The British Government was heavily involved in the drafting of the European Convention, was one of the first to sign it in 1950, and was the first to ratify it in 1951. Since 1966 the UK has also accepted the right of individuals to petition the Strasbourg authorities in respect of alleged breaches of the Convention. Yet the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the state as obligations in internal law were not, themselves, part of, or actionable within, the domestic legal system. (ref: Human Rights Act 1998: A Practitioner's Guide, Baker, London, 1998 Chp.1: 1-02).
In general terms, sovereignty has an internal and external meaning. Internally it means the right to make laws within the state frontiers to the exclusion of other authorities, and to take any necessary steps to enforce those laws. Externally, it means the right of a state to take part on a level of legal or formal equality with other members of the states-system. The possession of sovereignty distinguishes a state from other political entities such as colonies, protectorates, trusteeships or other forms of dependent territories.
Sovereignty, or the recognition of the independence of a territorial entity, has to be generally recognised by other states before that entity is accepted as a member of the states-system, and can engage in diplomacy and enter into legal contracts with other member states, and have its legal rights respected as established by international law. Given the scope and range of areas covered by this definition, the consequences of a denial of sovereignty are all too apparent. The principle was deemed so vital to humanity that it was enshrined in The Declaration of the Rights of Man. This major document was drawn up by the National Assembly, which met at the start of the French Revolution in 1789 and was to provide the basis for the Constitution. It was modelled on the American Declaration of Independence and also reflected the influence of Rousseau's ideas. The following are some prominent and essential pointers to its significance:
“Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” (Art.1); The natural rights of man are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression. (Art.II); The principle of ALL SOVEREIGNTY resides essentially in the nation. No body and no individual can exercise authority if it does not take its origin from the nation. (Art.III); Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take a part personally or through their representatives in its formation. (Art.VI); The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. (Art.XI). (ref: Political Studies, C.A. Leeds, Plymouth, 1981, pp.44-5.).
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