Unblock Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly

of the Good Friday (or Belfast) agreement is being celebrated this week with high-profile visits to Northern Ireland by the American president and the British and Irish prime ministers. On almost any measure, the agreement has been a huge success. By bringing peace to Northern Ireland after the three decades of Semtex and kneecapping known as the Troubles, it has saved many lives and brought . Other places afflicted by long-standing sectarian divides now avidly study the peace process that helped bring this about.Yet in one respect the agreement has worked less well: in the power-sharing executive at Stormont. Because of boycotts by one or other of the two biggest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party () and the nationalist Sinn Féin, the executive has been suspended for more than a third of the time since 1998—and for nearly 60% of the past five years.