Ireland has initiated a legal challenge against Britain over a new law that gives conditional amnesties to former soldiers and militants, involved in decades of violence in Northern Ireland, the European Court Of Human Rights declared today.

The victims' families, human-rights groups, and all major political parties in Ireland, including British Unionists and Irish nationalists have completely condemned the law that came into force last September.  
 
The ECHR added that the Irish government is arguing that certain provisions of the law are not compatible with the European Convention.
 
Britain has stopped prosecutions of those involved in the "Troubles" period, arguing these prosecutions are highly unlikely to lead to convictions and that legislation is needed to "draw a line under the conflict" suggesting an independent body be set up instead. 
 
When announcing its decision to take the British government to court over the law last month, Ireland said it had no other recourse but to take legal action, as London had shut off any possibility of a political resolution. 
 
The war between both countries that ended with a 1998 peace deal caused the death of around 3,600 people in three decades of confrontation between Irish nationalist militants seeking a united Ireland, pro-British "loyalist" paramilitaries, and the British military.