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International legitimacy, self-determination, and Northern Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1985

Adrian Guelke
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Extract

‘Northern Ireland Is free to determine its own future. It is a fundamental part of the United Kingdom, If the majority of the people in Northern Ireland wish not to be obviously we would honor their wish, whether it was to be independent or to join up elsewhere. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom because of the wish of the majority of its people.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 37 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1985

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References

1. Newsweek, 16 May 1983. In response to the question: ‘Can you imagine that during the life of any government of yours, there could be moves towards reunion of Ulster with Ireland or independence for the province?’.

2. UN Doc. A/5725/Add 4 (1964) p. 74. The British submission argued strongly in favour of designating self-determination a principle rather than a right.

3. The Observer, 24 April 1983.

4. Report drawn up on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee on the situation in Northern Ireland. Rapporteur: Mr N. J. Haagerup, 19 March 1984 (European Parliament Working Documents 1983–1984, Document 1–1526/83), p. 37.

5. Wight, Martin, Systems of States (edited by Bull, Hedley) (Leicester University Press, 1977), p. 153Google Scholar.

6. Ibid.

7. UN interest in the question of Gibraltar dates back to 1963 when the issue was first considered by the Special Committee on decolonization. The General Assembly passed a resolution calling for negotiations between Britain and Spain in 1965. Everyman's United Nations: A Summary of the activities of the United Nations during the five-year period 1966–1970 (United Nations, New York, 1971), p. 187.Google Scholar In November 1982 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for negotiations between Britain and Argentina on the sovereignty dispute over the Falklands by 90 votes to 12. Keesing's Contemporary Archives, Vol. XXIX (1983), 32108.Google Scholar

8. Transkei (26 October 1976), Bophuthatswana (6 December 1977), Venda (13 September 1979), and Ciskei (4 December 1981).

9. See, for example, Hyam, Ronald, The Failure of South African Expansion 1908–1948 (London, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. See Randall, Peter (ed.), Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1982 (South African Institute of Race Relations, Johannesburg, 1983), pp. 375–9Google Scholar.

11. The phrase was coined by Die Burger, a pro-government newspaper in South Africa, in the late 1950s.

12. Kelley, Kevin, The Longest War: Northern Ireland and the IRA (Dingle, 1982), p. 354Google Scholar.

13. Pomerance, Michla, Self-Determination in Law and Practice (The Hague, 1982), p. 9Google Scholar.

14. M. Wight, op. cit., p. 168.

15. General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV), 14 December 1960.

16. General Assembly Resolution 2625 (XXV), 24 October 1970. 25 UN GAOR, Supp. 26 (A/8026) p. 124.

17. UN Monthly Chronicle, Vol. VII, No. 2, February 1970, p. 36.

18. There are some examples of secession by mutual agreement between a central and a regional government or between two governments forming a loose confederation. The most important example was Singapore's secession from the Malaysian Federation in August 1965. The Federation was under two years old at the time. Bangladesh's membership of the United Nations was not uncontested. The People's Republic of China used its newly acquired veto in the Security Council to hold up Bangladesh's membership until 1974. Throughout the actual crisis the United States Government made constant reference to the UN's position on self-determination in defence of its support for Pakistan. See, for example, Kathleen Knight, ‘Bangladesh: The Price of National Unity’ in Johnston, Ray Edward (ed.), The Politics of Division, Partition, and Unification (New York, 1976), pp. 93–5Google Scholar.

19. The Hammond World Atlas (Maplewood, NJ, 1980)Google Scholar contains a note (p. 51) that the United States does not recognize the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the Soviet Union and actually reproduces the flags of the defunct Baltic states. (The atlas also contains a map showing the historic divisions of Ireland.)

20. See, for example, Fawcett, James, The International Protection of Minorities (Minority Rights Group, London 1979), p. 8Google Scholar. The Minority Rights Group submitted a Draft International Convention on the Protection of National or Ethnic Groups of Minorities to the UN Human Rights Commission in 1979. It includes the right to secede.

21. See Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., ‘Why Africa's weak states persist’, World Politics, Vol. XXXV, No. 1 (October 1982), pp. 16–24Google Scholar.

22. Mazrui, Ali, Towards a PaxAfricana (London, 1969), p. 21Google Scholar.

23. See Kuper, Leo, Genocide (Harmondsworth, 1981), pp. 161–5Google Scholar.

24. Everyman's United Nations, op. cit., pp. 66–7.

25. See, for example, Claire Palley's chapter in Watt, David (ed.), The Constitution of Northern Ireland (London, 1981)Google Scholar, especially pp. 187–8. The guarantee to Unionists is enshrined in the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973. It reads: ‘It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland remains part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom, and it is hereby affirmed that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part of it cease to be part of Her Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of the majority of the people of Northern Ireland voting in a poll held for the purposes of the section in accordance with Schedule 1 of this Act.’ The Act of course could be repealed by the Parliament at Westminster as was indirectly made clear by the Prime Minister during 1981 to the annoyance of Unionists.

26. Quoted in Gilbert, Martin, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchilll 1939–1941 (London, 1983), p. 433.Google Scholar

27. See, for example, Carson, William A., Ulster and the Irish Republic (Belfast, 1957)Google Scholar. Much of the book is devoted to criticism of what are called ‘Eire Separatists’.

28. The Irish Times, 14 March 1983.

29. Wallace, Martin, British Government in Northern Ireland (Newton Abbot, 1982), p. 53Google Scholar.

30. See, for example, Downey, James, Them and Us: Britain, Ireland, and the Northern Question 1969–1982 (Dublin, 1983), pp. 188–90Google Scholar and Joyce, Joe and Murtagh, Peter, The Boss: Charles Haughey in Government (Dublin, 1983), p. 147Google Scholar on Haughey's tentative suggestion of an Anglo-Irish defence pact. Fitzgerald, William, The Irish unification and N.A.T.O. (Dublin, 1982)Google Scholar puts the case for such a deal between Britain and Ireland.

31. Benn, Tony, ‘The Ulster question that nobody will answer’, The Guardian, 18 July 1983.Google Scholar He was contradicted the following day in a letter from the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Rees, Merlyn, The Guardian, 19 July 1983.Google Scholar

32. Fortnight, (Belfast), December 1983, p. 19.

33. See, for examples, Fortnight, May-June 1982, p. 16 and Belfast Telegraph, 12 October 1982.

34. Belfast Telegraph, 12 March 1983.

35. For more details on the UDA's commitment to independence see A. Guelke, ‘Loyalist and Republican Perceptions of the Northern Ireland Conflict: The UDA and the Provisional IRA’ (paper presented at the International Political Science Association World Congress, Rio de Janeiro, August 1982).

36. Belfast Telegraph, 12 October 1982.

37. The Irish Times, 20 July 1983.

38. See, for example, Phillip Knightley, ‘Is Britain Losing the Propaganda War?’, The Sunday 77mey,31Mayl981.

39. See, for example, New Ireland Forum Report (Stationery Office, Dublin, 1984), p. 8Google Scholar.

40. Lloyd George appreciated the weakness of the British case on partition in 1921. He outlined his strategy on the negotiations with the Sinn Fein leaders to his Cabinet colleagues in the following terms: ‘If the Conference started without securing in advance Irish allegiance to the Crown and membership of the Empire, the discussion would become entangled in the Ulster problem; that De Valera would raise the question of Fermanagh and Tyrone, where we had a very weak case, the Conference might break on that point, a very bad one. He would rather break—if there was to be a break—now, on allegiance and Empire.’ Jones, Thomas, Whitehall Diary: Ireland 1918–1925 (ed., Middlemass, Keith) (London, 1971), p. 111Google Scholar. The Irish negotiators held a similar view. See Pakenham, Frank, Peace by Ordeal (London, 1935), pp.184–9Google Scholar.

41. New Ireland Forum Report, op. cit., p. 17.

42. The Provisionals welcomed direct rule as clarifying the conflict. The point is discussed in greater detail in my paper cited in note 35 above.

43. See the discussion on the ‘map-image’ of Ireland in Bowman, John, De Valera and the Ulster Question 1917–73 (London, 1982), pp. 11–25Google Scholar.

44. On 15 November 1983, the Legislative Assembly of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus unanimously approved the declaration of an independent ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’. The new state received international recognition only from Turkey and on 18 November 1983, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution condemning the declaration and deeming the ‘purported secession’ to be legally invalid by 13 votes to one with one abstention. See Keesing's Contemporary Archives, Vol. XXX (1984), 32638–41Google Scholar.

45. Keesing's Contemporary Archives, Vol. XXIX (1983), 32111Google Scholar.

46. See Emerson, Rupert, Self-Determination revisited in the era of decolonization (Harvard University Center for International Affairs, Cambridge, Mass., 1964), pp. 55–7Google Scholar.

47. Quoted in M. Pomerance, op. cit., p. 96.

48. The Irish Times, 12 September 1981. Irish Government sources estimated that Provisional sympathizers in the United States collected over a million dollars in the first six months of 1981. J. Downey, op. cit., p. 198.

49. This is discussed in detail in A. Guelke, ‘The American connection to the Northern Ireland Conflict’ (paper presented to the UK Politics Workgroup, Political Studies Association, Belfast, September 1982).

50. See Keesing's Contemporary Archives, Vol. XVIII (1971–72), 25444 on Colonel Gadafy's speech on 11 June 1972.

51. The Sunday Tribune, (Dublin), 6 May 1984.

52. The Irish Times, 3 May 1984.

53. The Irish Times, 1 May 1984.

54. An example is the allegation by the Official Unionist leader, James Molyneaux that Russian submarines have been landing arms on the west coast of Ireland for use by INLA. Newsletter (Belfast), 21 June 1983. No real evidence for this allegation has emerged.

55. Carroll, Terrance G., ‘Northern Ireland’ in Suhrke, Astri and Noble, Lela Garner (eds.), Ethnic Conflict in International Relations (New York, 1977), p. 37Google Scholar.

56. Moxon-Browne, Edward, Nation, Class and Creed in Northern Ireland (Aldershot, 1983), p. 40.Google Scholar

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid. p. 41. However, in a poll in the Republic carried out in May 1983, 39 per cent of the sample said they thought reunification would never happen. The Irish Times, 27 June 1983.

59. E. Moxon-Browne, op. cit., p. 42.

60. On nationalist hopes, see, for example, J. Downey, op. cit., p. 186. On Loyalist fears see, for example, Ulster (Belfast), February 1984, p. 2. Ulster is the mouthpiece of the Ulster Defence Association.

61. Quoted in Dillon, Martin and Lehane, Denis, Political Murder in Northern Ireland (Harmonds-worth, 1973), p. 282Google Scholar. The statement is characteristic of the Supreme Commander of the UDA, Andy Tyrie.

62. At the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis at the end of October 1982, a resolution that the Republican movement held no brief for organizations like the Red Brigade was passed overwhelmingly. By contrast, a section of Ruairi O'Bradaigh's Presidential address was devoted to praising the PLO. An Phoblacht, 4 November 1982.

63. For example, according to Leo Kuper, South Africa, Israel, and Chile ‘predominate overwhelmingly’ in the proceedings of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Sub-Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. L. Kuper, op. cit., p. 179.

64. In the opening session of the New Ireland Forum, the Fianna Fail leader, Charles Haughey made a strong plea for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland on the assumption that it would pave the way to a united Ireland. The Irish Times, 31 May 1983. However, the Irish government was apparently less sanguine about the likely consequences of a British withdrawal in 1974. See above at note 37.

65. For one of the first of these warnings see Conor O'Brien, Cruise, States of Ireland (London, 1972), pp. 299–303Google Scholar. See also Conor Cruise O'Brien, ‘No through road from the Forum’, The Observer, 13 May 1984.

66. New Ireland Forum Report, op. cit., p. 27.