- The Belfast Agreement was a major political development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s and has provided Northern Ireland’s divided society with a political framework to resolve its differences.
- .Northern Ireland’s present devolved system of government is based on the Agreement which has created a number of institutions between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
- The Agreement is made up of two inter-related documents, both agreed in Belfaston Good Friday, 10 April 1998:
- a multi-party agreement by most of Northern Ireland’s political parties;
- an international agreement between the British and Irish governments (the British-Irish Agreement).
- The Agreement was approved by voters across the island of Ireland in two referenda held on 22 May 1998. It was made between the British and Irish governments and eight political parties or groupings from Northern Ireland: the Ulster Unionist Party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party, the Progressive Unionist Party, the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, the Ulster Democratic Party and Labour.