Weil ich ihm nicht trau, wir sind befreundet.1Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to recent scholarship over the formation of international treaties, and the complex role of trust in negotiations leading to such treaties, through a case study of the development of human rights protections in Northern Ireland following the decision of the United Kingdom (UK) to exit from the European Union (EU). The absence of trust between the UK and its EU negotiating partners led to an enhanced role for international law. This article demonstrates that while, in principle, the UK Government sought, within the constraints of parliamentary sovereignty, to operate in the human rights field freed from the previous constraints of EU human rights law, in practice, the Government found itself significantly constrained in departing from the EU human rights acquis Communautaire in Northern Ireland, largely due to external pressures exerted by the EU institutions working together with the Irish Government and civil society actors on the island of Ireland. The UK was not trusted to honour merely political commitments, as a result of the domestic political chaos following the result of the Brexit referendum, and the deep unease elicited by the growth of "sovereignist" rhetoric in the UK. This resulted in international legal obligations playing a critical role, being used to trump the UK Government's preferred freedom to depart from human rights norms. These crystallised in Article 2 of the Ireland-Northern Ireland Protocol (renamed the Windsor Framework in March 2023) to the European Union- United Kingdom Withdrawal Agreement and the national and international governance and enforcement arrangements that aim to make it effective. Article 2 obliges the UK to ensure that its exit from the EU will not result in any diminution of the rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity guaranteed in the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
