Statement of the Irish American Unity Conference on Ireland’s Challenge to UK’s Legacy Act
December 20, 2023
Washington, DC
The Irish American Unity Conference applauds and endorses the Irish Government’s decision to take an interstate case in the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the UK over the heinous Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act.
We are aware that this decision involved difficult legal and political considerations, but the decision to proceed is the only right one. Britain’s Legacy Act, more properly known as the Amnesty Act, is one of the cruelest acts to date by a government which has waged virtual war on its own citizens in the North of Ireland for decades. This Amnesty Act, designed primarily to grant immunity to British Army veterans and their operatives who brutalized, tortured, and killed citizens with impunity, has poured untold additional grief on families in the North who have campaigned for years to learn the truth about their loved ones. The decision to challenge this law affirms Ireland’s leading role as an advocate for human rights around the world, in sharp contrast to the UK’s long-standing and ongoing disdain for human rights and brutal treatment of its subjects, whether in the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, the American Colonies, China, or Northern Ireland.
