Impact case study database

Below are indicative examples of how the team’s research has directly influenced debates on legacy since August 2013. It also details the reach and significance of that impact.

1. Impact on Draft Legislation to enact the SHA (2013-2014)

During the negotiations which led to the SHA, the team drew on their research on ‘transitional justice from below’ [R1] and on the ways to encourage truth recovery and amnesties [R2] to propose models for the negotiating parties on how this could be facilitated in NI. One model they put forward - which suggested limited immunity in return for truth rather than a broader amnesty - was ultimately adopted in the SHA. As the DUP lead legacy negotiator Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said, ‘We have met with Kieran McEvoy and his colleagues and listened to what they have to say. We have made it clear both in public and in private that we are opposed to amnesties for terrorist murder. However, limited immunity is a separate concept’ [S1]. Following the SHA, there have been intermittent high-level negotiations on advancing legacy (see below). The team continued to draw on their research to develop proposals to overcome successive political and legal obstacles. The sustained value of these interventions was noted by Sinn Féin lead negotiator and former IRA leader Gerry Kelly: ‘the Model Bill team have over many years provided an informed contribution to complex legacy discussions…[and] their work has informed considerations of both governments and the political parties, while also developing wider public understanding of legacy issues’ [S2].

1. Impact on Draft Legislation to Enact the SHA (2015-2021)

Soon after the SHA’s publication in Dec 2014, working with a parliamentary draftsperson, the team developed a 48pp ‘Model Bill’ from the SHA 5pp ‘heads of agreement’. This ‘Model Bill’ [R4, R5], launched at the House of Lords in 2015, contains 70 detailed clauses with a further 41pp of explanatory notes and a model treaty on the ICIR setting out what that Agreement would look like in human rights compliant legislation. McEvoy, with the NGO partner, CAJ, led on investigations/truth recovery and reconciliation (HIU, IRG); Mallinder and McEvoy on prosecutions/immunity (ICIR); and Bryson on oral history (OHA). The legal and political complexities involved have been discussed at over 20 meetings with the UK government legislation drafting team, their Irish counterparts, and politicians from across the political spectrum. The team also raised civil society awareness and sought feedback on emerging drafts by hosting public events, conferences and seminars (see below). Key provisions of the government’s Draft NI Stormont House Agreement Bill 2018 (henceforth ‘SHA Bill’ **[S4]**) were directly influenced by the team’s ‘Model Bill’ e.g. (i) the governance arrangements, powers and funding of the HIU (SHA Bill Clauses 2-15, 24, and Schedules 3-8); (ii) the limited immunity provisions in return for information recovery of the ICIR and the importance of credibility testing information (SHA Bill Clauses 42,44,45); (iii) the independence, governance and ethical standards of the OHA (SHA Bill Clauses 51,52,56) ; (iv) the remit and operation of the ICIR (SHA Bill Clauses 59,62, Schedule 17). As a former under-Secretary of State for NI confirmed in a letter to the UoA partner CAJ ‘I would like to acknowledge the input that you and others have brought to the Shadow Bill [Model Bill] project, and I know my officials have found this to be a useful and innovative way of engaging in parallel with the development of the [government] Bill’ [S3]. The team’s (159pp) response to the Draft Bill was in turn widely used by civil society groups in their own responses during the legislation consultation (see reach below).

1. Providing a Solution to the National Security Impasse (2015)

In 2015, political negotiations on implementing the SHA broke down over the issue of UK national security. In particular, nationalist victims of state violence threatened to withdraw support for the SHA over a perceived ‘British veto’ on truth recovery. The Model Bill team worked closely with the two principal nationalist victims’ groups, the two main nationalist parties (Sinn Féin and the SDLP) and the Irish government to devise a model that could re-establish confidence [R5]. A version of this model, allowing for a judicial determination as to what constitutes a legitimate national security concern, is contained in Clause 21 the UK government’s 2018 Draft Bill. Commenting on this work, then Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade stated: ‘the model which you have presented to Secretary of State Villiers and I is a most valuable and constructive contribution to the deliberations on the establishment of the legacy institutions and the crux issue of onward disclosure [S5].

1. Finding a Legally Viable Solution to the Statute of Limitations Impasse (2017-21)

In 2017, following the arrest and prosecution of British soldiers for NI conflict-related offences, British army veterans began to campaign to end what they dubbed a ‘witch-hunt’ against security personnel. The Model Bill team submitted a detailed written submission on this issue to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee (DSC) [S6a] and McEvoy gave oral evidence, arguing that a blanket statute of limitations for soldiers would be unlawful under international law and would inevitably be applied to former paramilitaries [S6a]. He put forward an alternative method of reducing conflict-related jail time to ‘zero’ while retaining the prosecutorial, truth recovery and reconciliation components of the SHA. McEvoy’s oral evidence and the team’s underpinning research are cited 16 times in the DSC report and the Committee drew directly and explicitly from these options in their written report to government. It concludes ‘to borrow Professor McEvoy’s phrase, the space for legal imagination resides in responding to historic allegations against former service personnel’ [S6a, p20]. In a letter to the UoA, then NI Director of Public Prosecutions (the legal body with statutory responsible for decisions on conflict-related prosecutions) described McEvoy’s arguments to the Committee as ‘a tour de force’ adding, ‘ His contributions were measured, knowledgeable and legally robust while at the same time seeking to find principled but workable solutions to these complex and challenging issues’ [S7]. While the Conservative-dominated DSC recommended a statute of limitations for NI, this has not been implemented. Indeed, in subsequent correspondence to DSC Chairperson, the former Secretary of State for NI referred to the evidence presented to the DSC when stating that such an amnesty would be against international law and would inevitably apply to former paramilitaries [S8]. In 2018-19, McEvoy was invited to attend a series of meetings with the Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, the head of Army Legal Services and others, and agreed to further develop ‘zero jail time options’ which are lawful and compatible with the SHA Agreement. The Model Bill team published a detailed report on this in April 2020. The NI Affairs Committee discussed that report at Westminster. The team is cited 6 times in the Committee’s report [S6b]. In questioning the former Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Hanna MP referred to *‘the document from Kieran McEvoy, Louise Mallinder and others offering to reduce to zero jail time. Do you think that could be workable or acceptable to victims?*’ The former Commissioner replied, ‘that team did have a session with the Victims and Survivors Forum and worked through those options… For most people they felt they could live with that’ [S6c]. This report was also the focus of high-level discussions including a private meeting (Nov 2020) chaired by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace involving McEvoy and Bryson, the NIO Permanent Secretary and Director of Legacy, Irish government equivalents, former Victims’ Commissioner, the British Army’s Head of Legal Affairs, senior loyalist and republican ex-combatants and senior police officers.

1. Evidence of Reach: Shaping the Public Conversation on NI Legacy Issues (2015-2021)

The Model Bill team’s work has also had a substantial impact on building understanding, awareness and engagement among victims’ groups and other civil society actors with what are often legally complex legacy questions. To achieve this, the team has: routinely engaged in private bilateral meetings with key stakeholders; organised 20 public seminars and 6 conferences; made all project reports freely available online; and engaged extensively in media work. The team’s influence on civil society engagement on legacy is evidenced by citations of their reports. For example, publicly available responses to the government’s consultation on the draft legislation in 2018-19 indicate that 19% (8 of 43) submissions directly cite McEvoy and/or the Model Bill team [S9a]. These include the Green Party, Amnesty International, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. The latter is the largest civil society membership organisation in NI representing 215,000 members across 34 trade unions. It stated, ‘Our allies in the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) and QUB Law have already produced their joint submission to this process, which has our support’ and: ‘We concur with the points made and concerns raised by the legal experts from CAJ/QUB Law’ [S9b]. In the most recent NI Affairs Committee inquiry into NI legacy, 12 (33%) of the 36 non-QUB written submissions cite the team’s research including the Methodist Church in Ireland, NI Human Rights Commission and the Wave Trauma Centre [S6b, pp31-33]. The former head of research and policy in the Commission for Victims and Survivors stated that the work of the Model Bill team: ‘has been crucial in informing the public debate… I know this public service has been particularly valued by victims from across the political spectrum’ [S10].

As part of their efforts to inform the public debate on legacy, McEvoy, Mallinder and Bryson were also interviewed, referenced or quoted individually or collectively over 130 times in print, broadcast and online media (2014-20). In print, they appeared in the Financial Times (28 Aug 2015 & 2 Jun 2014 - circulation of 155,000 per issue and 1,000,000 online subscribers), The Times (2 May 2017 & 27 Apr 2017- circulation of 400,000 and 300,000 online subscribers) and The Irish Times (19 Mar 2015, 9 Apr 2020, 6 Dec 2020, - circulation of 79,000 and 10,800,000 monthly online users). They have written over 20 feature articles, Op Eds and blogs e.g. The Guardian (11 May 2018 - circulation 125,000 and 85,000,000 global monthly website users), The Irish Times (30 March 2018) and the Belfast Telegraph (5 April 2017, 19 June 2017 - circulation 31,000 with 3,400,000 monthly users). On radio, they were interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme PM (21 Nov 2013 - 4.11,000,000 listeners weekly), LBC Radio’s Nick Ferrari show (20 Jun 2018 – 1,300,000 listeners) the BBC Nolan Show (14 May 2018 & 22 Nov 2017 - the most listened-to radio show in NI, reaching 21% of the NI population) and BBC Radio Ulster’s multi-award winning daily political affairs Talkback (4 March 2014, 20 June 2017, 7 March 2019, 5 & 7 Dec 2020). They have appeared on UTV News (8 May 2014), Sunday Politics NI 13 May 2018 (BBC’s flagship weekly politics show) and seven times on UTV’s weekly politics programme, The View from Stormont (e.g. 5 Mar 2019, 3 Oct 2017 & 6 Feb 2017). When details of the Nov 2020 Lambeth Palace meeting were leaked, it made front-page news in two of the three local newspapers and was the lead story on NI TV and radio news. The former PSNI Chief Constable said ‘Anyone who takes the time to read this [Model Bill team] report will see that it is trying to make sense of the legacy journey that we’ve been on and all the various stalled and failed attempts at resolving the legacy issue… it’s good that we have the brain power from academia … trying to nudge this thing forward’ [S11].

1. International Impact

Finally, the team has had a significant impact on international scrutiny of the UK’s compliance with its human rights obligations regarding NI legacy matters. In 2015, they helped to coordinate a mission to NI by the then UN Special Rapporteur on Transitional Justice, directly impacting his report presented to the UN Human Rights Council in 2016. He confirmed in a letter to QUB Law: ‘Profs McEvoy and Mallinder and Dr Anna Bryson have significant international reputations in the field of transitional justice… Their research on trying to find human rights compliant solutions to NI legacy matters including truth recovery and national security considerations, justice, oral history and reconciliation was an invaluable resource for us and directly influenced my thinking in writing the country visit report I presented to the [UN] Human Rights Council… It is clear to me that their work has played a key role in anchoring the NI legacy conversations to the relevant international human rights standards, particularly in recent times in response to pressures in Westminster for a statute of limitations for former soldiers… Prof McEvoy edited a well-known book some years ago called Transitional Justice from Below. This is what it looks like in practice’ [S12].