page_title: Good Friday Agreement
section_title: Strand 2
hierarchical_section_title: Good Friday Agreement / New institutions / Strand 2
caption_attribution_description: English: Offices of the North-South Ministerial Council, in Armagh, Northern Ireland.
context_page_description: The Good Friday Agreement, or Belfast Agreement, is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of the Troubles, a political conflict in Northern Ireland that had been ongoing since the 1960s. It served as a major development in the Northern Ireland peace process of the 1990s. Northern Ireland's present devolved system of government is based on the agreement. The agreement also created a number of institutions between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
  Issues relating to sovereignty, civil and cultural rights, decommissioning of weapons, demilitarisation, justice and policing were central to the agreement.
  The agreement was approved by voters across the island of Ireland in two referendums held on 22 May 1998. In Northern Ireland, voters were asked in the 1998 Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement referendum whether they supported the multi-party agreement. In the Republic of Ireland, voters were asked whether they would allow the state to sign the agreement and allow necessary constitutional changes to facilitate it.
context_section_description: Strand 2 dealt with "north-south" issues and institutions to be created between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. These are:
  North/South Ministerial Council
  North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association
  North/South Consultative Forum
  The North/South Ministerial Council is made up of ministers from the Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of Ireland. It was established "to develop consultation, co-operation and action" in twelve areas of mutual interest. These include six areas where the Northern Ireland Executive and the Government of Ireland form common policies but implement these separately in each jurisdiction, and six areas where they develop common policies that are implemented through shared all-Ireland institutions.
  The various "institutional and constitutional arrangements" set out in the Agreement are also stated to be "interlocking and interdependent".
  As part of the Agreement, the newly created Northern Ireland Assembly and the national parliament of Ireland (the Oireachtas) agreed to consider creating a joint parliamentary forum made up of equal numbers from both institutions. In October 2012, this forum was created as the North/South Inter-Parliamentary Association.
  The Northern Ireland political parties who endorsed the agreement were also asked to consider the establishment of an independent consultative forum representative of civil society with members with expertise in social, cultural, economic and other issues and appointed by the two administrations. An outline structure for the North/South Consultative Forum was agreed in 2002 and in 2006 the Northern Ireland Executive agreed it would support its establishment.
caption: The offices of the North/South Ministerial Council on Upper English Street, Armagh, Northern Ireland
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