Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement
August 21, 2023
The Rt. Hon. Rishi Sunak
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London, Great Britain SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister Sunak:
In August of 2021, our committee wrote to your predecessor, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, expressing our deep dismay at his decision to breach the New Decade, New
Approach (NDNA) agreement, which included a commitment to uphold and implement the Stormont House Agreement as it relates to legacy issues. This proposed breach was taken up yet again by Prime Minister Liz Truss.
The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy & Reconciliation) Bill, which your government now plans to bring forward in the near-term future in the House of Commons, has been met with almost uniform opposition in Northern Ireland. The bill would violate the United Kingdom’s international law obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and is further inconsistent with the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.
Nothing has changed except the list of objections and the breadth of the opposition. The bill will only provoke a decade of unproductive litigation. The festering of historical grievances will continue. This legislation will also harm your concerted efforts to develop a new trade relationship with the United States, given the clear bipartisan opposition in the U.S. Congress to the current legacy proposal.
Existing mechanisms, while not perfect, have been making progress and in certain instances have produced dramatic results. To a significant extent, the lack of progress in existing mechanisms has been a function of stonewalling by previous UK governments.
We urge you to break from these past failures and return to the NDNA agreement as the basis for addressing the legacy of the Troubles. This is a far superior alternative than the current bill, and it allows you to build on your success in delivering the Windsor Framework, which is moving Northern Ireland in a new and more positive economic direction. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Congressman James Walsh & Congressman Bruce Morrison
Co-Chairs of the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement
c.c.
Antony J. Blinken, United States Secretary of State
Dr. Amanda Sloat, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs, National Security Council, Executive Office of the President
U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Chairwoman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation
U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts, Ranking Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation
U.S. Representative Tom Kean, Chairman, House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe
U.S. Representative William Keating, Ranking Member, House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe
Congressman Mike Kelly, Co-Chair Friends of Ireland Caucus
Congressman Richard Neal, Co-Chair Friends of Ireland Caucus
Her Excellency Dame Karen Pierce, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the United States of America
Her Excellency Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States of America
The Right Honourable Lord Jonathan Caine, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Right Honourable Chris Heaton-Harris, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement was formed in early 2019 by a group of forty
Americans who have worked for decades on the Northern Ireland peace process. The Committee is a bipartisan group that includes five former Ambassadors and two former Special Presidential Envoys. Those signing our initial letter to Prime Minister Theresa May in February of 2019 included former Under Secretary Paula
Dobriansky, U.S. Senator Gary Hart, former Special Presidential Envoy Mitchell Reiss, current National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, U.S. Senator Chris Dodd, former NSC Advisor Nancy Soderberg, Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley and Ambassador Kevin O’Malley among others.
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