Abstract: There exists a great wealth of literature analysing the role of tax havens and exclusionary economic zones (EEZs) in the shifting international dynamics of globalisation, particularly in the writing of scholars such as Quinn Slobodian and Ronen Palan. However, these works place a vast majority of their focus on “typical” tax havens, former colonial outposts with incredibly small populations, such as the Cayman Islands, neglecting more “atypical” tax havens, such as the Republic of Ireland, which have intentionally implemented neoliberal tax policies as a vehicle for economic growth. This paper asks how such states can nonetheless function as intermediaries within contemporary systems of neo-imperial capital accumulation, in ways that more traditional tax havens do not. To answer this, I draw on Johan Galtung’s Structural Theory of Imperialism, in tandem with empirical evidence from relevant scholarship and databases, and argue that Ireland’s unique corporate tax policies, symptoms of its colonial history with Britain, cause the nation to play a decisive role as a permissive agent of neo-imperialism.

In 2015 alone, foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) shifted around €90 billion into the Republic of Ireland. Not only did this sum surpass the cumulative profit shifting though every Caribbean nation in the same year, it placed Ireland as the “the number one destination worldwide for such profit relocation.” (Tørsløv, Wier, and Zucman, 2023). This figure is incredibly striking, insofar as Ireland defies the traditional image of what a tax haven looks like: It is an onshore EU nation with robust institutions, formal regulatory compliance, and a comparatively large population. Unlike the former colonial outposts that encompass the majority of the literature on tax havens, Ireland was not colonised for the purposes of trade, and has instead deliberately pursued neoliberal corporate tax policies as a strategy for economic recovery from said colonisation and the structural vulnerabilities that have ensued from it. However, in doing so, this paper argues that Ireland has established itself as a permissive agent of these patterns as they manifest themselves in the 21st century, facilitating the extraction of value from both global and domestic peripheries while aligning itself with the centres of global capital. 

The typical image of the tax haven is one that has dominated the scholarship for decades, with the most acclaimed studies of the phenomenon analysing the earliest and most obvious examples of tax havens in smaller jurisdictions like the Cayman Islands, a nation famous for having more registered corporations than it does citizens. Such “typical” tax havens are well suited to scholarly analysis for several reasons: Firstly, their concentrated cash flows make the tracing of multinational profit-shifting a much simpler process when compared with larger nations with more complicated economies. Secondly, due to their isolated geographical positions and dependence on foreign capital, their existence is easily viewed as exceptional, in a way that makes them easily detachable from more “standard” economic practices. Lastly, the unique history of these more typical tax havens as former colonial outposts separates them even from other tax havens with colonial history, which has led to the underlying assumption among many in the field that this is a uniquely causal relationship. This limited scope of analysis presents a gap that the literature tends to stray away from, implicitly limiting the visibility of more atypical tax havens like Ireland (Haberly and Wójcik, 2015).

The Republic of Ireland, then, finds itself in a class of atypical tax havens alongside other European nations such as The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Switzerland that, despite being consistently ranked by several key databases as some of the largest repositories of corporate wealth in the world, find themselves largely distanced from the term and its connotations. For Ireland in particular, this friction with traditional means of formal classification arises from its emphasis on transparency and alignment with legal regulations like those from the OECD, leading some scholars to refute its classification as a tax haven altogether (Tobin and Walsh, 2013). Furthermore, its tax policies can be traced back to the nation’s period of economic revival in the late 1990s and early 2000s, often referred to with the moniker “Celtic Tiger” (Breathnach, 1998), a period which, in and of itself, was catalysed by the nation’s steep post-famine population loss (Whelan, 1999). In other words, it is crucial to understand that Ireland’s role in the global economy is not a result of coincidental circumstances, but of intentional economic strategy. While this paper will engage with the scholarly debates surrounding the formal classification of tax havens, my primary focus lies in the functional consequences on the global flow of capital, a lens of analysis that better reveals the uniqueness of Ireland’s situation. In function, Ireland situates itself as a “transmission belt” state, facilitating the large-scale transfer of resources from nations in the global south to large MNCs, while still remaining aligned with international regulations (Harding, 2014; O’Boyle & Allen, 2021). Therefore, existing scholarly frameworks for tax havens are insufficient for truly capturing the disharmony in benefits of this arrangement, particularly between different socio-economic and national groupings. This disagreement highlights the need for a structural framework for how formally compliant states can nonetheless functionally contribute to the patterns of uneven exchange in resources in the global economy.

In order to capture the essence of this uneven exchange, this article draws on Johan Galtung’s Structural Theory of Imperialism (1970) as a framework of analysis for how Ireland’s actions reflect the manifestation of neo-imperialism present in “institutional globalisation” (Steger, 2023). Galtung’s model, initially conceived for the description of more traditional imperial dynamics (e.g. Britain and India), describes the relationship between “centres” and "peripheries". In the aforementioned case, Britain served as the centre nation, exerting control over and, crucially, engaging in an uneven exchange of resources with India, the periphery. Furthermore, the most relevant insight in Galtung’s framework, at least for this paper, is the idea that both nations contain an interior centre and periphery, where both centres have a “harmony of interest” and both peripheries have nothing of the sort; while the aristocracy and maharajas may find common ground, an English coal miner and Indian farmer have no such alliance. Identifying this dynamic in particular as pivotal to imperialism, both new and old, this paper will make three key arguments. First, that the Irish government forms the domestic “centre” whilst the centre within its periphery nations is composed of the MNCs that Ireland has a harmony of interest with. Second, that the periphery in both groups, the ordinary citizens of all relevant nations, have a distinct disharmony of interest and are both negatively impacted. Lastly, Ireland's position as a transmission belt tax haven places it in a “semi-central” position, exposing a degree of simplicity in Galtung’s framework. In other words, Ireland is not a traditional imperial centre, but it performs imperial functions through institutional and regulatory power. Overall, this framework positions Ireland not as a passive beneficiary of global capital flows, but as a permissive agent of neo-imperialism embedded within contemporary institutional globalisation.

Scholars of international economics are increasingly interpreting tax havens as systemic features of contemporary capitalism rather than peripheral irregularities. In his seminal work Crack Up Capitalism, Quinn Slobodian frames tax havens and EEZs within a broader neoliberal project that provides markets with a degree of insulation from democratic influence (Slobodian, 2023). This process is described by Slobodian as the “encasement” of capital, and he goes on to argue that such jurisdictions, and the hyper-mobility of capital they facilitate, are not anomalies, but necessary components of an international order designed to protect investor interests from popular sovereignty. However, Slobodian argues that it is reductive to classify these processes as a “weakening” of the state, instead positing that the state is instead selectively repurposed, preserving formal legality and institutional legitimacy while hollowing out democratic control over economic decision-making. In this way, Slobodian’s structural interpretation aligns closely with Ronen Palan’s work in The Offshore World, which similarly rejects the notion that tax havens exist outside the global economy. Instead, Palan situates these offshore jurisdictions as not only a component of the global economy, but an essential component of its function, enabling regulatory arbitrage that separates capital from the nations in which it is produced (Palan, 2003). Despite their agreement in scope, these two foundational works in the field differ in their analytical emphasis. While Slobodian puts the ideologically informed neo-liberal projects that actively construct zones of market insulation at the fore, Palan characterises tax havens less as deliberate ideological experiments and more so as functionally integrated mechanisms of the global economy. In synthesis, this literature shifts analysis away from narrow concerns exclusively stemming from tax revenue loss and towards a deeper interrogation of how tax havens reconfigure sovereignty through a manipulation of accountability. However, while these scholars contribute immensely to a deeper understanding of tax havens, specifically in the mechanisation of capital being insulated from democracy, they offer limited engagement with the ensuing relational hierarchies that emerge between states. In particular, the question of how formally compliant and apparently humanitarian states may nonetheless function as intermediaries within broader patterns of unequal exchange remains underdeveloped, a gap this paper seeks to address.

Building on these functional conclusions, a growing body of scholarship shifts attention toward the relational consequences of tax haven activity, focusing on ways in which these jurisdictions structure uneven economic exchanges between states. Drawing on dependency theory, Johan Galtung’s Structural Theory of Imperialism offers a conceptual lens for the interpretation of these dynamics, particularly in his centre-periphery framework. Galtung argues that inequality is reproduced not only through direct extraction, but in indirect intermediaries that form structural links between peripheral economies and global centres of capital accumulation (Galtung, 1971). Through this lens, capital flows outward separately from accountability, allowing inequality to persist without overt political domination. Contemporary literature in this field goes some way to adapt this framework to the architecture of global tax havens. Garcia-Bernardo et al. and Janský chart the international network of MNC profits to demonstrate how a small subset of judiciaries function as “conduits”, mobilising capital between high-tax states and the offshore centres, or “sinks”, where said capital finally accumulates (Garcia-Bernardo et al., 2017; Janský and Palanský, 2019). The most crucial findings from this school of thought, at least for the subject of this paper, are those highlighting the disproportionate manner in which negative fiscal consequences are borne lower and middle-income countries, whose tax bases are eroded despite their limited participation in designing global tax rules. Gabriel Zucman compounds upon this mechanism in his book The Hidden Wealth of Nations, highlighting the entrenchment of inequality that stems from states’ reliance on corporate taxation for development and public provision (Zucman, 2015). However, while this literature does expose the uneven exchanges at the core of offshore finance, it tends to treat these intermediary states as neutral transmission points rather than politically situated actors. By prioritising network topology and revenue loss, these analyses fall short of providing an accurate blueprint for how formally compliant “onshore” states, and specifically the domestic centres within them, may both actively benefit from and sustain these hierarchies, while simultaneously deflecting responsibility via their apparent adherence to international norms. This limitation is particularly salient in the case of advanced small states that occupy neither core nor peripheral positions, yet play a decisive role in reproducing global patterns of unequal exchange, an analytical space this paper interrogates through the case of Ireland.

As scholarship increasingly acknowledges both the structural and relational roles that tax havens play in the global economy, a parallel debate has emerged over how Ireland itself should be situated within this literature. Within this debate, a central point of clash concerns whether Ireland constitutes a tax haven at all, or if it would be more accurate to describe the nation simply as a standard western economy that happens to have an abnormally low corporate tax rate. In What Makes a Country a Tax Haven, Gary Tobin and Keith Walsh argue the latter point, emphasising Ireland’s deviation from conventional offshore jurisdictions due to its transparency, regulatory compliance, and formal adherence to OECD standards, suggesting that its low-tax regime reflects a development strategy rather than predatory offshore behaviour (Tobin and Walsh, 2013). The opposing view, extrapolated by Sophie Harding in the aptly named Why Ireland is a Tax Haven, contends that this distinction is largely cosmetic, arguing neither the sophistication of Ireland’s institutions, nor its apparent legal conformity, are able to mitigate the material effects of its tax policies, which continue to facilitate large-scale profit shifting and base erosion elsewhere (Harding, 2014). This contention reflects a broader disagreement within the literature, one that proves essential in the analysis conducted in this paper, between classificatory approaches that seek to define tax havens by legal or institutional criteria, and functional approaches that prioritise the economic roles states play within global capitalism. Increasingly, scholars in the field have migrated towards the idea that a purely classificatory stance on the issue obscures the more consequential question of how states like Ireland operate within transnational networks of capital mobility. In their book Tax Haven Ireland, Brian O’Boyle and Kieran Allen advance the more functional perspective,situating Ireland within a political economy of “dependent development”. In doing so, they argue that Ireland’s post 2000 model of economic growth has aligned domestic interests with multinational capital while externalising social and fiscal costs both internally and internationally (O’Boyle and Allen, 2021). Collectively, this body of work suggests firstly that the “tax haven” label is a complex tool for scholarly analysis, and secondly that it faces limitations in its application to advanced small states whose economic influence derives less from secrecy than from their ability to intermediate global capital flows under the cover of legal legitimacy. However, while these contributions recognise some degree of the uniqueness of Ireland’s position, they stop short of theorising its role within broader centre-periphery hierarchies. More specifically, the literature has yet to fully synthesise Ireland’s position as a semi-peripheral intermediary with existing theories of uneven exchange, like those from Galtung. This paper aims to address that gap by reconceptualising Ireland as a durable transmission belt within contemporary neo-imperial structures rather than an anomalous case.

Rather than conceptualising imperialism strictly as a process of territorial conquest or direct political domination, structural approaches emphasise the proliferation of inequality through enduring institutions and economic relationships. Galtung’s Structural Theory of Imperialism serves as an acutely relevant model for this process, redefining imperialism as “a system of interaction between centres and peripheries that operates independently of formal sovereignty (Galtung 1971).” The central tenet of Galtung’s framework lies in the notion that imperial power is sustained through a harmony of interests between dominant centres, corroborated by a disharmony of interest in both the vertical centre-periphery relationship, as well as the horizontal periphery-periphery relationship. In Galtung’s summation this harmony/disharmony of interest can pertain to a variety of fields, though the scope of this paper lies primarily in how resources, value, and decision-making authority flow asymmetrically. Rather than the direct coercion or administrative control characteristic of historical imperial relationships, this extraction is facilitated by structural linkages and intermediaries that allow economic benefits to accrue upward while political responsibility remains diffuse. Consequently, it is not antithetical to this framework for peripheral states to retain sovereignty, independence, and institutional legitimacy, even as their developmental trajectories are constrained by external economic forces. This dichotomy of accountability existing politically and power existing on a separate economic axis renders structural imperialism immensely durable, making the subsequent inequality highly reproductive. Therefore, Galtung’s framework allows for a means of conceptualising imperial relations that extend beyond traditional core-periphery binaries, and subsequently analysing how structurally intermediary states, even politically anti-imperial ones, may nonetheless perform imperial functions within global capitalism. This theoretical perspective is the cornerstone in arriving at the nucleus of neo-imperial patterns of uneven exchange, and their manifestation independent of classical imperialistic processes.

Galtung’s theory was conceived in an economic and political climate notably different from that of the 2020s; the era in which it was published was rife with industrial production and bilateral dependency relations, as well as the persistence of many classical imperial relationships that are extinct today. While this evolution has done little to harm the applicability of Galtung’s core insights, the manner in which these imperial functions actuate, and subsequently obscure themselves, has become more complex in tandem with the financial and legal infrastructures upon which they depend. Under conditions of heightened capital mobility and financialisation, the extraction of value no longer follows a simple pathway from one single periphery nation to one single imperial centre nation, but instead finds itself propagated along several distinct nodes in a network of capital accumulation. In effect, this means that the process described by Galtung as a “harmony of interest among centres” is preserved through mechanisms more covert than simply political alliance: Shared commitments to legal stability, investor protection, and regulatory arbitrage of the kind discussed by Slobodian and Palan facilitate the propagation of these patterns in the 21st century. In this way, tax havens have emerged as the structurally embedded nodes enable the modern centre-centre coordination by facilitating the circulation of capital independently of its sites of production or social cost. Crucially, given the nature of these neoliberal tax policies funneling profits into these MNCs, tax havens can not be accurately labeled entirely as “centres” in Galtung’s framework, instead functioning as semi-peripheral transmission belts that facilitate a system where peripheral nations remain undercut, but central nations are superseded by MNCs. This diffusion of imperial function across legally compliant and institutionally legitimate states renders contemporary imperialism both more durable and less visible than its classical predecessor, manufacturing the theoretical space in which the role of advanced small states in global tax governance becomes analytically salient.

While much of the existing literature on tax havens characterises these intermediary jurisdictions as neutral in their facilitation of capital mobility, the lens of Galtung allows for the structural interpretation of these states as key actors in a broader system. The semi-periphery exists as a strategic position with the capabilities of a kingmaker, aligning its interests with dominant forms of capital accumulation and deriving selective material benefits from its integration into global markets, while remaining sufficiently insulated from the most severe social and environmental costs of extraction. Additionally, it proves analytically reductive to characterise the incentives to engage in such practices as purely economic, as, in the case of Ireland, political constraints rooted in historical vulnerability are a key driver (Whelan, 1999). It is here that Ireland presents the most credence as a case-study, in comparison with its half-dozen European peers in similar semi-peripheral positions, as it conveys both a direct link between classical and neo-imperialism, as well as a clear image of the semi-periphery as equal parts victim and victimiser, implicitly or otherwise. Unlike purely peripheral states, semi-peripheral intermediaries such as Ireland possess the institutional capacity and legal credibility required to embed themselves within international regulatory frameworks, which allows them a sufficient degree of political fiat with which to facilitate capital flows without appearing to deviate from global norms. It is in this political insulation where the semi-periphery is distinct not only from conventional imperial centres, but also from “typical” tax havens, whose overt exceptionalism render their political functions more visible and more easily contested. The semi-periphery’s utility therefore lies in its capability to obscure the asymmetry of the economic harms it incurs and embed itself within the legal architecture of global capitalism. The consequences, then, become that the harms of these arrangements onto domestic and exterior peripheries that, despite facing challenges that originate from the same source, have marginal capacity to establish any sense of political solidarity with one another. In light of this, the following section will analyse how Ireland’s transmission belt position manifests in practice, tracing the uneven distribution of fiscal dependence, developmental constraint, and political insulation across the internal and external peripheries implicated in these arrangements.

Ireland provides a unique case study to the field of tax havens and EEZs, as it displays the effects of these policies on a large, established urban population. While Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate is ultimately beneficial for the nation’s GDP, and subsequently its centre, Ireland’s interior periphery suffer several distinct harms, which cumulatively form the interior disharmony of interest domestically. In 2024, foreign MNCs accounted for 88% of Ireland’s corporate tax revenue (Reuters, 2023), establishing a relationship of dependency between a small set of US companies and the vast majority of Irish public welfare services. This dependency presents some clear exposure to external political pressure. This is most evident in US President Trump’s recent criticism of Ireland “luring away” some of the US’s largest corporations. Even ignoring this fact, Ireland’s overreliance on windfall corporate tax receipts (OECD, 2025) indicates a structurally coercive economic dependency, where the public services that Ireland’s interior periphery depend on are entirely compromised in the instance that even a dozen companies decide to jump ship. Additionally, such business practices are empirically linked with Ireland’s crisis of housing affordability. The OECD noted in their 2025 economic survey of Ireland that “multinational-dominated regions experience acute cost pressures that can restrict labour mobility and inflate living costs.” This, coupled with these MNCs contributing only 14% of the jobs in the country, despite being responsible for 45% of gross value added, mean that the remaining 86% of its population are faced with high rents, infrastructure pressures, and constrained labour mobility, a paradox in which the same tax strategy that sustains public revenue simultaneously reproduces the structural conditions that disadvantage Ireland’s internal periphery.

Similarly, looking outward to the exterior periphery, multinational profit-shifting operates as a systematic extraction of wealth from economies in the global south, entrenching unequal exchange and limiting their fiscal and developmental autonomy. In his research on tax havens, Gabriel Zucman indicates that roughly 40% of multinational profits worldwide are artificially shifted into low-tax jurisdictions (NBER, 2023), signalling the vast gap between the economic productivity of these regions and the revenue they stand to gain from said productivity. This gap is not the result of a physical relocation of capital, but rather a calculated series of accounting practices — transfer pricing, the strategic location of intellectual property, and intra-firm financial transactions (Vella, 2024). These practices enable profits generated in one jurisdiction to be legally relocated to another, amplifying the structural uneven exchange between producers of raw materials and the corporations that process and market their outputs. Consequently, this revenue loss is not evenly distributed; it disproportionately burdens low- and lower-middle-income countries, intensifying fiscal constraints and limiting state capacity for public investment (Garcia-Bernardo and Jansky, 2021). Evidence from sectors pivotal to the growth of resource-rich developing nations — oil, mining, and hydrocarbon production — shows that the enormous potential fiscal benefits of these industries are continually funnelled offshore (Chiocchetti and Moreau-Kastler, 2025), producing a dual impact: these nations not only experience a sizeable reduction in revenue, but their developmental mobility and autonomy are also severely constrained, illustrating how structural inequalities in the global economic system align with the centre–periphery dynamics discussed in this paper.

The empirical symmetry in the economic patterns affecting the internal periphery within Ireland and the external within resource-dependent economies in the global south, in tandem, reveal a form of neo-imperialism that functions without impacting territorial sovereignty. As shown above, Ireland’s dependency on windfall profits produces domestic disharmony of interest by entrusting a small number of foreign firms with immense fiscal influence, while multinational profit-shifting simultaneously extracts wealth from peripheral economies through accounting practices that manipulate legal loopholes (Zucman 2023; OECD 2025). In both cases, the harms of these practices; housing pressure, constrained labour mobility, environmental degradation, and foregone public revenue, are sustained by peripheries with marginal capability to alter the structures that facilitate them. This arrangement closely reflects Johan Galtung’s centre-periphery framework, particularly reflecting how the structural dependence and unequal exchange coexists with the opaqueness of formal political independence (Galtung 1971). Crucially, however, the contemporary manifestation of these patterns operates without direct coercion or colonial administration. Rather, it capitalises upon the regulatory compliance and institutional legitimacy that separate Ireland from more typical tax havens, allowing the state to function as a transmission belt for global capital, while maintaining a degree of separation from the potential political repercussions (Harding 2014; O’Boyle and Allen 2021). Therefore, Ireland does not function as a traditional imperial centre, but instead operates as a semi-peripheral intermediary through its centre-centre harmony of interest with MNCs, enabling neo-imperial functions to manifest. Viewing Ireland through this lens demonstrates how neo-imperial power can be exercised through formally compliant economic structures, reinforcing the need to prioritise functional roles over classificatory labels in the study of tax havens and global capitalism.

Having established the structural kinship between Ireland’s internal periphery and the external periphery found in these disaffected economies in the global south, the final component of empirical application pertains to the political insulation, and subsequently, the durability of these neo-imperial arrangements. Other “atypical” tax havens, in particular the Netherlands and Luxembourg, are spared from the same extent of this durability due to a few key distinctions with Ireland in the processes discussed above: These other European “conduit” nations, in comparison with Ireland, have lower reliance on corporate windfall profits, greater regulatory pressures, and face greater surmounting domestic political pressure for reform (Wier, Ludvig, 2021). Therefore, a large part of Ireland’s singular uniqueness in this realm is reflected in how durable its neo-imperial practices are in comparison to its peers, allowing the nation to effectively and consistently shift responsibility to global tax norms and legal conformity (Zucman 2023; Vella 2024). The result is a system in which the fiscal consequences incurred upon both peripheries are structurally reproduced but politically obscured, therefore limiting impacted states’ ability to reverse or even contest these flows (Garcia-Bernardo and Janský 2021). By enabling patterns of uneven exchange to persist without controlling territory or expressing political coercion, Ireland functions as a semi-peripheral transmission belt state that reinforces the entrenchment of inequality in global capitalism.

This paper has argued that Ireland, through its position as an atypical tax haven that insulates itself through formal compliance, acts functionally as a permissive agent of neo-imperialism, accentuating patterns of uneven exchange in the global economy. By drawing together scholarship on tax havens and institutional globalisation, and analysing them through the lens of Galtung’s framework for imperial relationships, the analysis has demonstrated how Ireland functions as a transmission belt of global capital, aligning its interests with the centres perpetuating patterns of uneven exchange and displacing social, fiscal, and environmental costs onto both domestic and external peripheries. Most importantly, it has demonstrated that these dynamics operate without territorial control or overt political coercion, instead mobilising regulatory legitimacy to generate political insulation, and that they therefore have much greater durability than traditional imperial relationships.

Empirically, this has been conveyed through the largely symmetrical harms incurred upon both Ireland’s internal periphery, and the exterior periphery found in resource dependent economies in the global south, where multinational profit shifting constrains developmental agency. Conceptually, the Irish case exposes the limitations of classificatory approaches to tax havens that prioritise legal status or exceptionalism over functional role, as well as the power that lies in normalising practices that otherwise be denounced as extractive, and as continuations of harmful imperialistic patterns. Overall, the broader implication lies in expanding both the analytical reach of imperialism as a concept and the scope of tax haven scholarship,

This paper also presents new horizons for broader research not strictly relegated to the functional capacity of Ireland as a state, exploring the neo-imperialist patterns within the institutional architecture of the 21st century. My hope is that a similar depth of analysis on other similar nations, like Luxembourg or the Netherlands, would heighten the possibility for political solidarity between peripheries, and subsequently, for reform. 

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Earlier this year, Irish rapper and political activist Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh (who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, in the rap trio Kneecap) faced charges of terrorism relating to the display of pro-Palestinian iconography. While the case was eventually thrown out, it shed light on an important issue affecting the fairness of trials involving indigenous peoples, both in and outside of Ireland. During the trial, Ó hAnnaidh indicated that he would be requesting an Irish language interpreter, a proposition that presents challenges in both legal and political contexts. In the jurisdiction of the U.K, where the case was to be tried, someone like Ó hAnnaidh’s ability to speak Irish in the court in any capacity without facing further prosecution dates back only to February 2024. Previously, speaking Gaeilge in British courts was still illegal, as per an archaic 1737 Act of Parliament. 

Given the already immense complexity of legal proceedings for native English speakers, it is evident that a fair and unbiased trial, something guaranteed by most western nations’ constitutions, is impossible if someone is not able to be tried in their native language. However, even today, those who seek to access this right are, like Mr. Ó hAnnaidh, faced with a long-list of hurdles preventing them from doing so. Each of these hurdles represents a convergence of potent societal forces that rear their heads in vastly different ways, depending on the nation they occur in. An analysis of these hurdles, as well as the effectiveness of the measures put in place by Governments aiming to alleviate them, reveals an injustice that rests all too easily in the hearts of our courtrooms.

Firstly, a universal challenge is presented by the massive shortage of interpreters, who need not only language interpretation skills, but also court-specific training. Revisiting the Ireland example, neither jurisdiction on the island has anywhere near a sufficient level of access to interpreters. In the Republic of Ireland, the right to speak Irish in the courts has been legally enshrined since the nation’s founding, and, on paper at least, Irish is given equal credence with English in dealings with the State. However, in practice, the necessity for an interpreter immediately puts Irish speakers on the backfoot. Unlike the UK, Ireland has no National Registrar of Public Service Interpreters, and so the appropriate support can take years to acquire. This waiting list prolongs a process that already causes anxiety and stress due to its lengthiness: Defendants, jurors, and and everyone else involved is kept away from their loved ones for longer, and the uncertainty of outcome hangs over their heads for longer than it has to, exacting a clear emotional toll. In the USA, the interpreter shortage is just as great, though its effects differ. For Indigenous peoples involved with immigration cases at the border with Mexico, people who often speak very little Spanish or English, an inability to find adequate interpretation means extended stays in detention facilities, longer backlogs, and an increased vulnerability to malicious prosecution.

Overall, an adequate amount of interpreters is crucial for speakers of indigenous to have any hope of a fair trial, and the solution is as simple as making this a priority for funding. In the USA, several initiatives are already being undertaken to amend the issue: At a federal level, the Federal DOJ & Agency Language Access Plans set out a clear blueprint for improving access to interpretation, both bilingually and trilingually (which is necessary in cases where those with limited English proficiency are also hard of hearing). At the state level, some states, such as Oregon, are organising wage subsidies and collectives for interpreters in order to fill in the gaps. In many cases, tele-interpretation is becoming increasingly common, a trend that would do well to catch on in places like Ireland. In New Zealand, we can already see the positive effect that these registrars and collectives can have on the situation: The Ministry of Justice runs an Interpreter Services Quality Framework, booking systems, and standards for court interpreters (including te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language). The Ministry also publishes annual reports on the matter, keeping the system quick and effective. This is not to say that New Zealand has no shortages or delays, but it serves as an excellent blueprint for other nations facing this issue.

During criminal proceedings in jurisdictions such as the United States, an additional layer of complexity and risk for Indigenous-language speakers arises from the discretionary power wielded by judges to decide whether an interpreter is necessary, and if so, when to provide one. In United States v. Black, the Tenth Circuit upheld a trial court’s refusal to appoint a Navajo interpreter for certain witnesses, based on the judge’s factual determination that they could respond in English. The outcome underscores how, even when statutory protections exist under the Court Interpreters Act, judges’ subjective judgments about linguistic ability can effectively deny access to culturally and linguistically appropriate interpretation. Similarly, in United States v. Osuna, appellate courts have remanded cases because trial courts failed to sufficiently inquire into whether language difficulties were impeding a defendant’s comprehension or participation, particularly when the individual speaks an Indigenous language but may also use some English. These discretionary decisions turn on whether the judge “perceives” a need, rather than on an objective metric of linguistic competence, or more importantly, on a functional assessment of whether the defendant or witnesses understand the legal process. Because courtroom interactions assume shared linguistic and cultural frames, this discretion can disadvantage speakers of Indigenous languages insofar as judges may underestimate or misunderstand the depth of a speaker’s language needs. Moreover, the lack of qualified, native-level interpreters for many Indigenous languages intensifies the problem. Even if a judge agrees an interpreter is needed, the scarcity of trained practitioners may delay appointment or force reliance on underqualified or relay interpreters, thereby undermining the accuracy of interpretation and the fairness of the trial. In short, judicial discretion, combined with interpreter scarcity and linguistic cultural misunderstandings, creates a structural bias that can cripple the promise of equal justice before the law.

The question raised by Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh’s insistence on an Irish-language interpreter in his trial is not merely a symbolic or political demand. It strikes at the heart of procedural fairness and substantive justice. Across different systems, in Ireland, the United States, and New Zealand, the legal right to interpretation for speakers of Indigenous languages is increasingly recognised on paper. However, recognition is not enough. Without sufficient numbers of qualified interpreters, transparent and proactive judicial inquiry, and safeguards against bias rooted in language and culture, these legal guarantees may remain hollow in practice. The discretionary power of judges, especially in contexts where they must assess the need for interpretation without clear guidance, introduces a source of subjective error that disproportionately harms Indigenous-language speakers. Governments must not only build interpreter capacity through training, certification, and funding, but also limit the potential for arbitrariness in judicial decision-making. True equality in the justice system requires that no person be disadvantaged because of the language they speak.

Sources:

Al Jazeera. “Indigenous Migrants Seeking US Asylum Struggle for Interpreters.” Al Jazeera, July 3, 2021.

Community Law. “Your Right to Speak Te Reo Māori in Court.” Community Law Manual. Accessed November 2025.

Irish Times. “Kneecap Case: A Woman Pointed to a Sniggering Moglai… as the Magistrate Asked If Anyone Knew an Irish Interpreter.” Irish Times, June 18, 2025.

Justice New Zealand, Ministry of Justice. Interpreter Services Quality Framework. Wellington: Ministry of Justice.

Law Justia. United States v. Anderson Black, 369 F.3d 1171 (10th Cir. 2004).

Law Resource. United States v. Osuna, 189 F.3d 1289 (10th Cir. 1999).

National Immigrant Women’s Advocacy Project (NIWAP). Department of Justice Language Access Plan. Washington, D.C., August 2023.

Pew Charitable Trusts, Stateline. “Indigenous Language Interpreters Unite to Fill Gaps.” Stateline, July 26, 2023.

Trinity College Dublin. “Kneecap Trial Spotlights Challenges for Irish Speakers in British and Irish Courts.” The Irish Times (Dublin), August 20, 2025.

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois. “Language Access Plan.” Accessed 2025.

There exists a shockingly widely accepted narrative that the advent of equitable jurisprudence, and consequently the multilateral laws that characterise the international arena’s relative peace in the modern age, is due exclusively to the efforts of European colonisers. 

Often, opponents to decolonisation frame the effectiveness of western legal systems as an exclusive and undeniable benefit of European expansionism, categorically rejecting any justice not served by way of written records or court orders. However, in every corner of the world, colonised societies are fighting back against this narrative. Moana Jackson and John Higgins, lawyers from Aotearoa and Ireland respectively, have both analysed the oral-traditions and narrative jurisprudence of their respective nations, and the connections between the two otherwise distant lands reveal a unity that speaks to the often-questioned value of storytelling.

In With Stories, Anything is Possible, Moana Jackson explains that early Maori legal systems were based on a foundation of ethical values and passed down through oral storytelling, “It may take a while, but with stories anything is possible. They can even shift time — it simply takes belief.” This system contrasts directly with a centralised written authority: Nobody held a Bar license or a J.D., and yet justice was still served, in accordance with values such as tikanga and manaakitanga. One value of this system that proves particularly relevant to today’s world is that of respect for the Earth (Papatuanuku), “In particular they recognised the need to re-place Papatūānuku at the centre of all political and personal relationships. To rehonour the responsibilities of a mokopuna to the earth is especially important in the current crisis of climate change.” 

This legal system was naturally eroded by colonisation, and provides another argument as to how Maori could never have truly understood the terms of Te Tiriti o Waitangi; if somebody presented me with a legal agreement in the form of a song in a language I don’t speak, I’d be very surprised to discover my house taken from me the following morning. For Maori, not only was the English language completely alien, but the very format in which the agreement was made was also. Over the course of the next century and a half, English laws forbidding Te Reo Maori in schools effectively locked millions out of the memory of what came before. For the Maori children of these generations, their ability to remember their previous legal traditions was quite literally beaten out of them with sticks.

However, with the efforts of the likes of Jackson, not only is this system and its values being brought back into the public consciousness, but it may also provide an equitable path forward. It has long been acknowledged among Maori that, as Jackson puts it, “a different constitutional arrangement” is necessary for a truly just co-operative society. While the format of this arrangement will undoubtedly have to make some compromises with the written conventions of western legal institutions, the values of Maori legal traditions provide a unique blueprint for moving forward from the horrors of colonisation.

In the second article, Afterlives of the ‘Brehon laws’ (2024) by John Biggins, the focus shifts from Aotearoa’s Māori order to the Gaelic‑Irish legal traditions, known in shorthand as the Brehon laws. Biggins argues that far from being a dead relic, the Brehon laws had a surprising afterlife, interacting with colonial legal systems, being invoked in modern litigation, and quietly shaping conceptions of justice in Ireland beyond the moment of formal abolition. 

Biggins begins by sketching the origins of the Brehon laws: a corpus of legal texts compiled in the 7th‑ and 8th‑centuries, by Christian‑learned classes in Gaelic Ireland, weaving together poetry, myth, custom and law (senchas). He emphasises that these laws were not issued by a centralising royal authority, but rather administered via hereditary judges (brithemain) and poets (filid) within a clan‑based social order.  Biggins then describes how colonisation via the Anglo‑Norman and later English administrations attempted to replace these native laws with common law, yet the Brehon system proved “stubbornly resilient” in certain regions — persisting in Gaelic‑held territories, mixing with Anglo‑Norman legal practices, and even being invoked in legal argument into the 17th, 18th and even the 20th centuries. 

One of the key episodes Biggins highlights is the use of Brehon legal doctrine in fisheries litigation in the 1930s‑40s: in cases concerning public fishing rights, expert testimony relied on early Irish legal tracts, and in one 1933 judgement the Irish Supreme Court accepted that under Brehon law there was a public right to fish, and found the title of a private fishery defective. Biggins also explores the symbolic resurrection of Brehon forms in the republican era: the parallel “Dáil Courts” established by the Irish Republic in 1920 allowed, in theory, parties to plead Brehon law alongside common law, reflecting a desire to draw on indigenous legal traditions for legitimacy. Though in practice such pleas were rare, the gesture itself is meaningful. 

Overall, the two articles are remarkably similar, despite the distance between the two nations: Both systems were oral in nature, both were based upon a system of ethical or moral values, and, most importantly, both existed well before any British colonisation took place. In fact, both systems only met their end when actively extinguished by a foreign power. The differences between the two systems are also worth noting, though they are much less prominent. Where previous systems of Maori jurisprudence represented environmentally focussed pathways for systemic change, the Brehon laws were far more historical and prescriptive, and the latter show very little signs of revival, mainly due to the ultimate issue in Irish decolonisation being reunification rather than co-governance. 

Therefore, we arrive at the conclusion introduced earlier: the widely accepted narrative that European colonial expansion exclusively brought “progress” in legal and institutional form is deeply misleading. In fact, across very different geographies, from Aotearoa to Ireland, indigenous legal orders endured, resisted, influenced, and sometimes re‑emerged. Recognising these traditions is not mere historical trivia: it opens up the possibility of legal pluralism, of a future constitutionally and institutionally informed by more than one legal heritage, one that honours values of community, land, story, and relationality alongside the written, centralised conventions of the western legal tradition.

Sources:

https://historyireland.com/afterlives-of-the-brehon-laws/ 

https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/with-stories-anything-is-possible/