The proposal to set up a number of independent commissions to study and make recommendations on policing, human rights and equality issues was central to the Belfast Agreement.
By far the most important because of the nationalist community's suspicion of the RUC was the Independent Commission on Policing, set up "to make recommendations for future policing arrangements for Northern Ireland, including means of encouraging widespread community support for these arrangements."
These would have to ensure that a future Northern Ireland police service was "fair and impartial, free from partisan control; accountable, both under the law for its actions and to the community it serves; representative of the society it polices" and conforming with "human rights norms".
Its chairman is the former Conservative cabinet minister and Hong Kong governor, Mr Chris Patten, and it includes English and US police chiefs, US and Canadian academics, and a lawyer, retired civil servant and businesswoman from the North.
Since last autumn it has been holding public hearings all over the North. In November Mr Patten angrily denied a newspaper report that early drafts of its report recommended that the membership of the RUC should effectively disband and reapply to join a new Northern Ireland police service. The commission's final report is expected in the autumn.
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission was effectively launched in January with the appointment of its chief commissioner, a University of Ulster law professor, Mr Bryce Dickson.
The commission, unlike the Commission on Policing, will be a permanent body to advise the British government - and it will advise the new Northern executive - on measures to protect human rights. It will study all proposed Assembly bills and give an opinion on whether they are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The commission will also help people whose rights have been denied or abused to take court action, and will, in certain circumstances, be able to bring proceedings itself. It will consult and advise on drawing up a Bill of Rights.
The work of the new Equality Commission is not so far advanced. This body will bring together the present Fair Employment Commission, Equal Opportunities Commission, Commission on Racial Equality and Disability Council, and will oversee a new statutory obligation on public bodies to promote equality of opportunity in carrying out their functions.
In May a working group chaired by Dr Joan Stringer, principal of Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh, published recommendations on how the new commission would work and what its priorities should be in the near future. It is expected that the new single Equality Commission will be established in the autumn.