What about the Good Friday Agreement?

Alex Kane wrote:

"The GFA which was endorsed by 71% in 1998 exists almost in name only today."

Sinn Fein abstained from the vote on the Good Friday Agreement

David Trimble said to Alex Kane:

"Sinn Fein were heavily opposed to a Northern Ireland Assembly. In December 1997 it was proving almost impossible to get them to even agree to put an Assembly on the agenda. The SDLP wanted it on the agenda but they weren’t prepared to face down Sinn Fein at that stage."

Fintan O'Toole on the Good Friday Agreement

In 2005 Fintan O'Toole wrote a fascinating article on the Good Friday Agreement on September 13 2005 in the Irish Times under the title, Folly of sectarian 'solutions'. On where the agreement ranks in human achievements, Fintan O'Toole said:

"[The agreement is] supposed to be a kind of constitution. It defines Northern Ireland as a political space and seeks to do so in a genuinely radical, exciting way. It is, indeed, perhaps the boldest constitutional document ever agreed between sovereign states. It creates space that is not ultimately claimed by any state, defines national identity as potentially both mutable and multiple, and rests sovereignty, not on history and geography but on that most complex and fluent of things - the collective mind of a majority of the population."

Dominic Grieve - Leaving ECHR could breach Good Friday Agreement

Dominic Grieve MP said at the Liberty Fringe event at the Conservative Conference in Manchester on September 29 2013:

"[Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights] could be interpreted as a sign that Britain is not interested in creating a better world. It could mean breaking other treaties such as the Good Friday Agreement which paved the way for peace in Northern Ireland. If we leave it then we have to take the international reputational consequences of doing so. It's a cost-benefit analysis in terms of whether we think we will benefit of doing it  and what the down sides are."