Might a deal on "acts of completion" mark a significant reduction in the assertion, if not the exercise, of British sovereignty over Northern Ireland?
Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble, would dismiss the very idea and, in strict constitutional terms, would be almost certainly correct to do so.
That said, narrow legal definitions do not provide the whole of the political context in which developments may be perceived and judged.
It is this wider context in which people will form their judgment on the final outcome of the Ulster Unionist Party/Sinn Féin tussle over verification of paramilitary ceasefires and "sanctions" to be deployed against parties deemed in breach of their commitment to exclusively peaceful means.
At Saturday's annual meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council Mr Trimble signalled one probable outcome of the present negotiation.
In the name of protecting the institutions of government established under the Belfast Agreement, Sinn Féin is pressing for the repeal of the Northern Ireland Act 2000.
This was the legislation introduced by former secretary of state, Mr Peter Mandelson, empowering London to suspend the Assembly. Ironically, Mr Mandelson commended his legislation as necessary to preserve the structures of the agreement.
The alternative, he told MPs at the time, would have been elections which - given the increasing polarisation of opinion in Northern Ireland - would probably have produced stalemate when it came time to elect new first and deputy first ministers and the appointment of an Executive.
The suspension legislation has been used on four occasions since February 2000 - each time to preserve the status quo and avoid the risk of fresh elections to the assembly.
The two technical suspensions in the summer of 2001 followed the still-disputed Weston Park deal.
Whatever else it may have promised, this provided the basis for Mr Trimble's return as First Minister, courtesy of the temporary redesignation by some Alliance and Women's Coalition members as "unionist" for the purpose of the Assembly vote.
Serious doubts remain about the legality of that manoeuvre, not least because of the narrowness of subsequent court rulings.
The Democratic Unionists are not alone in believing that the indisputable political case, in any event, was for elections at that point. Similarly last October, following the alleged IRA spy ring at the heart of the Northern Ireland Office, the British government availed of the suspension legislation.
The effect was to buy the time which has brought the parties to a serious negotiation which the British government still hopes might lead to a renewal of the UUP commitment to share power with Sinn Féin.
All of which is to say that - for all the Sinn Féin and SDLP complaints that it was in breach of the agreement, and Dublin's embarrassment at the unilateral exercise of British sovereign power - the Mandelson legislation has proved highly effective in preserving the institutions of the Belfast Agreement, even after the expiry of Mr Trimble's majority unionist mandate.
Yet now, it seems, the British government is preparing to meet Sinn Féin's demand for the repeal of the Mandelson Act. Last Saturday Mr Trimble maintained opposition to this move, arguing that the legislation should be retained while left to gather dust as the IRA completed its transition from terror to democracy. At the same time Mr Trimble told UUC delegates not to worry if they found the legislation scrapped because it could always be re-enacted at some future point.
Anyway, he added, nobody could force him to remain in government if he judged the republicans in breach of any "acts of completion" deal.
This is all true. Parties entered the agreement voluntarily, and the democratic principle must hold that consent given can always be withdrawn. Moreover, Section 5, sub-section 6, of the 1998 Act makes clear that nothing in the legislation establishing the structures of government shall affect the power of the UK parliament to make laws for Northern Ireland. Power devolved, as they say, is power retained. In which context Mr Trimble could reasonably argue that the withdrawal of the Mandelson Act was no more than a statement of Mr Blair's good intent, not binding on any successor British government, and, in any event, unequal to unionism's own continuing power of veto.
Yet the essential political as opposed to legal or constitutional context would suggest that the British government would face major difficulty in assuming suspension powers a second time.
Moreover, some unionists and Conservatives at Westminster fear London's very disavowal of the suspension power would be seen by unionists as conferring at least notional autonomy on the Stormont Assembly - and that in the context of a process republicans claim is but the transition to Irish unity.
Mr Trimble might dismiss all this as constitutional gobbledegook. However he cannot deny there is a political problem here. After all, the 1998 agreement did not impinge on British sovereignty. Yet that did not stop many of his own people believing the Sinn Féin version of the agreement as transitional route to Irish unity.
Likewise with the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985; unionists spurned the constitutional guarantees offered by Mrs Margaret Thatcher when set against her commitment to consult Dublin about the internal affairs of Northern Ireland and seek to resolve all matters of difference.
As John Hume constantly reminds us, perception can be as important as reality.
Mr Trimble might hope to challenge such perceptions now, if he wins the corresponding battle over the verification of paramilitary ceasefires and the "sanctions" to be deployed against parties deemed in breach.
However, those anxious Westminster Conservatives and unionists are equally alarmed by reports that the power of adjudication on the status of ceasefires - presently reposed in the Northern Ireland Secretary - might be vested in a commission including Irish and US nominees.
How would their power of decision square with British sovereignty? If on the other there are no implications for sovereignty, what, in real terms, would such a commission amount to?
Thus, to forfeit the suspension power and vest the Secretary of State's powers in an international body could represent a double-whammy for the Ulster Unionist Party. At the very least it would seem to represent a further step in the internationalising of the Northern Ireland problem.
It would also seem to strike at the theology of the unionist approach to the entire strand one/devolution aspect of the negotiations leading to the agreement, which successfully asserted that the internal governance of Northern Ireland was for the parties there and the British government alone.