Peter Hain
8 May 2008 saw the first anniversary of the devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Its reestablishment as such was noteworthy per se, but the fact that the two once so
acrimonious enemies of the republican Sinn Fein and the pro-British Democratic Unionist
Party came together to form a coalition, rightly deserves the term historic. This
development has sealed the progress made in the Northern Ireland question since the
1998 Good Friday Agreement, which was to a significant degree owed to the political
priority given to the conflict by Tony Blair’s Labour government. With the experience
gained during the peace process, Peter Hain, former Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland, explores the key factors and expands on the question, whether the lessons
learnt in the resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland can be transferred to ongoing
conflicts world wide.