International Governance

On this page, you will find all the work we are doing on the international and regional governance issues that affect Northern Ireland. Aspects of the 'Brexit settlement' are addressed here, as is the UK's relationship with the ECHR, the WTO and other international organs.

Event Recordings: Brexit and Identity in Northern Ireland

The ‘Performing Identities’ team hosted two lunchtime events on 23/24 June 2021, marking the culmination of a total of 5 years of work on ESRC-funded projects examining Brexit, Northern Ireland and legal, political and social dynamics of both.

In the first event, the PI team came together virtually to present some key findings from research that had been completed as part of the current project, which commenced in early 2019. This concluded with a Q&A.

A recording of this full event is now available below, along with time indicators for each part of the session.

Schedule

00.13 – Colin Murray (‘Rooting Around in Archives: The Protocol in Context’)

13.06 – Ben Warwick (Citizenship and Brexit)

24.21 – Megan Armstrong and Clare Rice (Brexit and Identity in Northern Ireland)

41.38 – Sylvia de Mars and Aoife O’Donoghue (Multi-level Governance and Brexit)

49.25 – Discussion and Conclusion

Performing Identities: Brexit and Northern Ireland – Part 1

On Thursday 24th June 2021, we hosted a second lunchtime event – a panel discussion focused on the theme of identity in Northern Ireland.

The purpose of this session was to engage in conversation about different perspectives on identity in Northern Ireland and to explore how the often overlooked complexity and diversity of identity in this context interacts with the traditionally binary conceptions along religious and/or constitutional lines.

The esteemed panel included:

Emma DeSouza (Rights Campaigner; Writer)

Mark Devenport (Former Political Editor, BBC NI)

Linda Ervine MBE (Director, Turas; President, East Belfast GAA)

Susan McKay (Journalist; Author of ‘Northern Protestants: On Shifting Ground’ – available to purchase here)

John O’Doherty (Director, The Rainbow Project)

Danielle Roberts (Women’s Rights Activist)

A recording of the full discussion, hosted online, is available below.

Performing Identities: Brexit and Northern Ireland – Part 2 (Identity)

PI’s Megan Armstrong also live-tweeted the session, and her summary thread can be found here.

ICON Conference

The research team attended and presented at the ICON Society (UK and Ireland) conference hosted by the University of Strathclyde. The papers presented were titled:

de Mars, ‘Making it (Even) More Complex: Plucking Trade from its Nest’

Murray, ‘Futureland: Northern Ireland after Brexit’

O’Donoghue, ‘Life after Brexit: Referenda, International Law and Unifying Ireland?’

Warwick, ‘Disappearing Rights under the Draft EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement’

They will find their way into written and published form shortly!

Presentations by the Research Team

As the UK approached one of its Brexit deadlines, March and Early April proved a busy period for presentation gigs! The research team presented the following papers:

  • Murray, ‘The Strange Case of Disappearing Rights in the UK-EU Withdrawal Negotiations’, Leeds University, SLSA Annual Conference (5 April 2019).
  • Warwick, ’Northern Ireland as a Perpetual Outsider’, Leeds University, SLSA Annual Conference (4 April 2019).
  • O’Donoghue, ‘Lessons from Brexit’, Wolfson College, Cambridge (29 March 2019).
  • Warwick, ‘What’s so wrong with the backstop anyway?’, Institute of Advanced Studies, Birmingham, Intercontinental Academia Programme (19 March 2019). 
  • Murray, ‘Brexit and the Common Travel Area’ NUI Galway (7 March 2019).