The Irish Border as a European Union Frontier: The Implications for Managing Mobility and Conflict

Abstract

The 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement defined the conflict in Northern Ireland as being over the border between this part of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland. This article defines and understands the Agreement as one of a number of 'border regimes' that operate between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland and, in doing so, seeks to explain how it is that Brexit has such significant implications for the management of conflict and mobility here. Against the backdrop of the European Union's (EU's) external border regimes, we argue that the most significant point about border regimes is not inclusion/exclusion across a state border but hierarchies of rights and treatment within a jurisdiction. This helps illustrate why it is that the UK's withdrawal from the EU holds such significance for the peace process in Northern Ireland and for mobility within and across the islands of Ireland and Great Britain more broadly.

Brexit and the Northern Ireland Constitution

“…Within this, some scholars provide detailed historical accounts of political and constitutional relations on the island of Ireland in view of the ongoing debates over the land border and peace process (see Ó Beacháin, 2019;Ferriter, 2019;O'Rourke, 2019). Others focus more specifically on the process of UK withdrawal from the EU and the issues it raises for Northern Ireland generally (see de Mars et al, 2018); for its still-in-process peace (see Murphy, 2018;McEvoy, Bryson and Kramer, 2020); for its border with Ireland (see Hayward and Komorova, 2019) as well as for its unique constitutional arrangements, according to the 1998 Agreement (see Halberstam and McCrudden, 2017;Anthony, 2017;Humphreys, 2018;Coakley and Todd, 2020). Given their direct relevance to this research, several contributions are worth setting out in more detail.…”

“…The traditional, state-centric UK ideal conceives of sovereignty as indivisible and nationally bound by clearly demarcated boundaries of inclusion and exclusion (see Whittaker 2017). By contrast, the EU ideal conceives of sovereignty as more diffuse, shared across national boundaries that are, less sharp lines division and more sites of integration and cooperation (see Komorova and Hayward, 2019). The multi-levelled governing framework provided for in the 1998 Agreement aligns much more closely with the latter, EU perspective on sovereignty, borders and interdependence (see Campbell et al 2003).…”

A Research Agenda for Territory and Territoriality

“…Even when borders appear as strict lines, they are subject to a range of forms of regulation and they are spaces across which things (including people) flow, although those flows may be somewhat variable and asymmetric. Borders are not static but are characterized by various practices and discourses and varying levels of fluidity (Dell'Agnese and Amilhat Szary 2015; Komarova and Hayward 2019). The Polish-German border regime is rather different to the Polish-Ukraine one; while the Irish border regime changed in the late 1990s with the signing of a peace agreement, but it may be about to change again due to the UK's departure from the EU (Figure 1.3).…”