The bulk of the essays in this volume have been delivered as part of Liverpool University's Institute of Irish Studies Peace Lecture Series, 1996-2000. The book is dedicated to Torkel Opsahl, the international human rights lawyer, who headed up the 1993 Opsahl Comission in Northern Ireland and died tragically early shortly afterwards, just as he was taking up his new post as head of the Bosian War Crimes Commission in Geneva.