A former secretary general at the Department of Justice and the former speaker of the Assembly are among the four-member commission announced today that will monitor the implementation of the Belfast Agreement.
Lord Alderdice, formerly leader of the Alliance Party, will be joined by Mr Joe Brosnan who has occupied several high-profile position in the Republic including EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs for six years in the 1990s.
Mr Brosnan, a trained barrister, was appointed director general of the Institute of European Affairs in 1999, serving in the post for three years. He also took part in discussions on north/south police co-operation and legal co-operation issues.
The US representative on the board is Mr Richard Kerr who has served US intelligence agencies for 32 years, rising to deputy director of the CIA.
In the past Mr Kerr has led a number of CIA divisions, managing the intelligence directorate and leading the office responsible for worldwide political analysis. He worked as a Soviet military analyst during the 1962-63 Cuban missile crisis.
As expected, Mr John Grieve CBE is the British appointment. He has served as the London Metropolitan Police's first director of intelligence and has also headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad.
The International Monitoring Commission will have three main functions:to monitor and report on alleged paramilitary activity; to investigate claims by political parties that individual ministers or Assembly parties are in breach of their commitments under the pledge of office of the Belfast Agreement; andto report on the British government's normalisation or demilitarisation programme that is to be undertaken in the event of acts of completion by paramilitaries.