THE British and Irish governments in their policies towards Northern Ireland are alone among European governments in encouraging the undermining of internationally-accepted national borders, a leading unionist has said.
Mr Dermot Nesbitt, a member of the Ulster Unionist Party's team at the inter-party talks, was addressing the Irish Association in Dublin yesterday.
He said international human rights law was based on a number of principles. First of these was the territorial integrity of states. Second was that the accommodation of minorities within a state should take place within existing borders.
However, an individual government was "not free to exercise its authority absolutely within the state; governments must subscribe to the agreed international rules for the protection of citizens: (whether majority or minority) within a state".
Mr Nesbitt said joint British-Irish proposals for governing Northern Ireland, such as the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the "Framework Document", were not in accordance with international law.
He said the Government would support proposals to change Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution provided the "Framework Document" was implemented. He believed those articles "in order to subscribe to the principles of international law, should be removed and not be thought of as subject to bargaining among the parties during the talks process".
He said the concept of "parity of esteem" within international law did not extend to all-Ireland "political linkages, as envisaged in the Framework Document".
Similarly, Dublin's long-term interest in the North "should be only to ensure that there is good government in Northern Ireland, and not to seek to have a say in that government". He felt the Government's present role was "too intrusive". It should make it clear it would "step back" once good government was assured in the North and accept "normal, cross-Border relations".