The best news to come out of Northern Ireland for quite a long time is the appointment of Brice Dickson as head of the new Human Rights Commission, due to be set up under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
Prof Dickson is head of the Department of Legal Studies at the University of Ulster. Before that he was a law lecturer at Queen's. But what gives cause for cheer is his proven record as a lawyer committed to campaigning for human rights, in the broadest possible sense, in Northern Ireland. He has a long association with the Belfast-based Committee for the Administration of Justice, is a former member of the North's Equal Opportunities Commission and acted as a consultant to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.
The new chief commissioner is probably best known for his work in advocating a Bill of Rights designed to take account of the special difficulties facing Northern Ireland. Prof Dickson's immediate priority will be to set in train a process of consultation on the Bill and thus, hopefully, encourage public debate on the key issues involved.
The promotion of human rights and equality of opportunity is fundamental to the Belfast Agreement. There are five pages devoted to these issues. They promise a new commitment in both parts of the island, including the setting up of a Commission for Human Rights in this State. The Taoiseach has said he wants this to be "a model of its kind for Europe, creating rather than following best standards of international practice."
If these aspirations are met, a commission in this part of the island will have dramatic implications for the way we treat the most marginalised sections of our society. As we have now seen in the conduct of various tribunals of inquiry, much commitment depends on the dogged commitment of those involved in running such a body as to whether it operates effectively for the public good.
The existence of a strong human rights commission in one part of the island will exercise a major influence on any institution which exists in the other. That is one reason Prof Dickson's appointment is so important. There had been serious fears in Northern Ireland that the British government was less than enthusiastic about implementing the pledges contained in the human rights section of the agreement.
Civil liberties groups, trade unions and other organisations issued warnings that the draft bill due to be put before the British parliament was weaker than the terms of the accord. Michael Lavery, who chaired the British government's own (soon to be disbanded) Standing Advisory Committee on Human Rights in Northern Ireland, recently urged Tony Blair to ensure the body would have sufficient powers and funds to do its job.
After intensive lobbying a number of amendments to the draft bill were accepted. The new commission will now have powers to vet all legislation going through the new Assembly to ensure it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and fully respects the ethos and identity of both communities. It will also be empowered to initiate investigations into human rights abuses and bring legal proceedings in the courts, either on its own account or on behalf of individuals.
Prof Dickson has already advocated a broader debate on human rights, which includes the responsibility to respect the rights of others, as well as the demand for protection of one's own civil and religious liberties. In countries like South Africa and Canada the process of consultation about a bill of human rights has led to wide-ranging public discussion, and it is hoped this will also happen in Northern Ireland.
Such a debate would almost certainly include the appalling problem of punishment shootings and beatings by paramilitary groups. In the early weeks of this year these have been increasing, both in number and in the savagery of the injuries inflicted, yet the statutory law enforcement bodies seem paralysed as to how to deal with them.
The accepted, though not perhaps acceptable, excuse is that for the police or the security forces to become involved in what has developed into turf wars for control of republican and loyalist areas could endanger the peace process at a particularly fragile stage.
It is precisely because of the political difficulties which seem to dominate the implementation of the Belfast Agreement that the setting up of a strong and credible human rights commission is so important. It had been feared that the Northern Ireland Office was looking for an administrator with a safe pair of hands to head the commission. Instead Dr Mowlam appointed a campaigning lawyer who sees the promotion of economic and social rights as of equal importance in Northern Ireland to political and legal issues.
From the time the Belfast Agreement was signed it was clear to most of its supporters that what was crucially important to the building of a secure peace was the pace of visible change on the ground. Instead the emphasis, perhaps inevitably, has been on political developments. At this level it has often seemed the agreement is mired in crisis and more or less permanently threatened with imminent collapse.
But at grassroots level there is not only hunger for change. The hope still exists that it can be made happen. That is to be seen in the numbers that attended the public meetings organised by Chris Patten's review body on policing. It is as though politics is conducted at two levels. The first, often tortuously slow, is through the Assembly and the official political representatives of the two communities. But progress is also being made at another level, by involving the broader community in the debate and demonstrating that real change is possible. The setting up of a credible human rights commission is an important step along the way.