The main problems that Sunningdale omitted and addressed in the Belfast Agreement are the principle of self-determination, the recognition of both national identities, Anglo-Irish intergovernmental cooperation and legal procedures to make power-sharing compulsory, such as inter-municipal voting and the D`Hondt system for appointing ministers for the executive. [24] [25] Tommy McKearney, a former IRA member and journalist, argues that the main difference is the British government`s intention to negotiate a comprehensive agreement by involving the IRA and the more intransigent unionists. [26] With regard to the right to self-determination, the jurist Austen Morgan cites two qualifications. Firstly, the transfer of territories from one State to another must be done through an international agreement between the British and Irish Governments. Secondly, the people of Northern Ireland can no longer bring a united Ireland alone; they need not only the Irish Government, but also the citizens of their neighbouring country, Ireland, to support unity. Morgan also pointed out that, unlike the Ireland Act 1949 and the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, drawn up under Sunningdale, the 1998 Agreement and the resulting UK legislation explicitly provided for the possibility of a united Ireland. [27] These institutional arrangements, established in these three areas, are defined in the agreement as “interdependent and interdependent”. In particular, it is found that the functioning of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the North-South Council of Ministers is “so closely linked that the success of the other depends on the success of the other”, and participation in the North-South Council of Ministers is “one of the essential tasks related to the relevant posts in [Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland]”. At the same time, the integration of such different perspectives has had two effects on the content of the agreement. First, the mutual distrust of the parties pushed them towards a model of consociation that blocked vetoes. This reduced the risk of one of the parties being put in a minority and made the deal tastier for their respective constituencies.102 But this came at the expense of possible paralysis.
. . .