Peace Process

The Equality Coalition has responded to the Assembly and Executive Review Committee’s (AERC) Review into Assembly and Executive Reform. Our submission includes several key asks: The AERC should advocate for the repeal of the St Andrews veto and its replacement with the NI Bill of Rights. The Petition of Concern should be further reformed to introduce the adjudicatory role of...

The Equality Coalition has submitted our response to the draft Programme for Government consultation. Our response focuses on: Programme for Government legal framework The previous draft PfG in the New Decade New Approach deal The 2024 PfG consultation Equality Coalition members ‘asks’ for areas in the PfG

On 13th October 2023, the Equality Coalition and the Transitional Justice Institute, with support from the LSE Gender, Justice and Security Hub, hosted a seminar which explored whether rights-based safeguards could make Stormont functional. The seminar consisted of two panels. Panel one covered a range of issues including a Bill of Rights, Stormont vetoes, and judicial interventions. Panel two covered...

On 15th November 2023, the Equality Coalition and the Transitional Justice Institute, with support from the LSE Gender, Justice and Security Hub, hosted a seminar which discussed how the rights of minorities and women could be protected in a United Ireland. The seminar consisted of two panels. Panel one covered issues around post-unification cross-border constitutionalism, unionist rights in a united...

On 25 April, the Equality Coalition gave evidence to the Northern Ireland Assembly Committee for Communities on the Anti-Poverty Strategy.  Daniel Holder (CAJ), John-Patrick Clayton (UNISON), Becca Bor (Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network) and Trása Canavan (Barnardo’s) represented the Coalition. They spoke about the duty to adopt an Anti-Poverty Strategy, judicial reviews of the Northern Ireland Executive and the 2020-2022 Mandate...

On 28 June 2023, the Equality Coalition, Barnardo’s NI, and the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network (NIAPN) held a joint seminar calling for the development of an anti-poverty strategy to be a day one priority for the next NI Executive. ‘Progressing an anti-poverty strategy for Northern Ireland’ took place at Stormont and was sponsored  by MLAs from five political parties. Northern...

The Equality Coalition, Barnardo’s NI, and the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network (NIAPN) have produced a joint briefing note calling for the development of an anti-poverty strategy to be a day one priority for the next NI Executive. The three organisations launched the briefing at a seminar held in Stormont on Wednesday 28 June 2023. Northern Ireland has already been waiting for an...

The Equality Coalition has developed a series of ‘Policy Asks’ for Northern Ireland, which have a particular emphasis on rights and equality. These ‘asks’ are based on a recent mapping exercise examining the status of rights-based commitments from the agreements of the NI peace process.

In 2019, our Manifesto for a Rights Based Return to Power Sharing called for a new agreement to remove those political vetoes within the NI Executive that are not based on (and have conflicted with) equality and rights duties, and as such contributed to the destabilisation and collapse of the NI Executive in 2017. The issue returned to prominence in November...

More than two years have elapsed since the devolved power sharing institutions provided for under the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) collapsed in Northern Ireland. Additionally, many of the rights based commitments of the peace settlement, including those originally designed as to act as safeguards on the NI Executive and Assembly, remain unimplemented or have been misimplemented. Fresh cross-party talks to...

In March 2021, the Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey published the reports of four Expert Advisory Panels to help inform the development of the new social inclusion strategies for Northern Ireland. We have drafted a short briefing paper summarising each of the four reports and their key recommendations.