Where stands the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in Irish law? The answer seems to be; not very visible or very important.
When Sean McBride, as Minister for External Affairs, signed up Ireland to the Convention in 1953, he took the radical steps of accepting, in perpetuity, the right of individuals in the Republic to complain to Strasbourg as well as the permanent jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. But that seems to have been the high point. Apart from the prosecution of Britain over internment and torture in the 1970s, there appears to have been little governmental or legal interest since in the Convention - or indeed in the Council of Europe.
And while countries, such as Norway, Sweden and Britain, have been conducting intense debates on the incorporation of the Convention into their ordinary law, there has been an absence of serious discussion of this question in Ireland. This suggests a level of parochialism and complacency, surprising in a country that boasts it is strongly communautaire. The Council of Europe is not the same as the EU. It is an older body which has a similar aim of European integration in the area, not of economics, but of human values and human rights.
Its contribution to building a common European understanding as well as level of protection of rights and freedoms in Western Europe over the last 40 years has been enormous.
Now it is playing a similar role in the new Europe, including central and eastern Europe as well as Russia. The link between the full protection of human rights and democratic security is a message which the Council of Europe has preached consistently over the years. It is also a lesson we have hopefully learned from the 30 years of conflict on this island.
The most faithful way to express Irish commitment to a democratic Europe is through full acceptance of the European standards of protection on human rights. That means making the Convention part of domestic law. The Irish answer to why it is now the only country out of 40 in Europe not to incorporate the European Convention, is that such a step is unnecessary since Irish citizens have the equivalent and more protection in the 1937 Constitution. Apart from the fact that this is not wholly true - ask homosexuals who have no protection in the Irish constitution, or unmarried partners - it misses the point. Ireland is committed as a matter of international law to ensuring that the Convention's protections are enjoyed in Ireland.
Other European countries are equally as proud as the Irish of their constitutions and their courts' experience of defending human rights.
But all, even now Britain, have concluded that European integration, as well as the protection of their populations, is best served by allowing them to invoke the Convention and the judgements of the European Court directly in their own courts. Only we stand out. The sole official defence of this "Sinn Feinery" was offered in the Whitaker Report on constitutional reform in 1996. There is much that is positive in the Whitaker Report, (on which Government action is long overdue), but not its rejection of incorporation.
Whitaker suggested a "pick and mix" series of referendums with clauses taken from the European Convention and other treaties, which would then be added to the Constitution. This would result in referendums from now to eternity. The best solution is one referendum to incorporate the Convention as a whole into the Constitution and to enjoin the Courts to harmonise its interpretation with the existing catalogue of rights. The impetus for action should be the Belfast Agreement. The Taoiseach committed his Government to delivering human rights protection "at least to the level" of the new Northern Ireland. That ought to mean the full incorporation of the European Convention, which is what the London parliament is now doing for Britain.
The Belfast Agreement can only be strengthened by a common European language on human rights used in both parts of this island and in all parts of Britain.
Kevin Boyle is a professor of law at the Human Rights Centre University of Essex.