NZ not in on aggression law
New Zealand will not be one of the first 35 countries activating an international law to make national ‘‘aggression’’ a crime.
But Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said yesterday that officials were looking into how we might eventually join the 35 who signed yesterday.
The law would allow for ministers like Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern or Defence Minister Ron Mark to be tried in domestic courts or The Hague if New Zealand committed an armed act of aggression.
‘‘Aggression’’ is defined as the use of armed force against the ‘‘sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence’’ of another state in a way that amounts to a ‘‘manifest violation’’ of the United Nations charter by its ‘‘character, gravity, and scale’’. The UN charter prohibits these attacks when not carried out in selfdefence.
Some kind of international rule outlawing aggression has been in the works since the Nuremberg Trials at the end of World War II, but has been hampered at many turns.
New Zealand officials played a role in the formation of the amendment to the Rome Statute, which 35 countries are ratifying and ‘‘activating’’ but New Zealand will not be one of them.
Germany, Switzerland and Samoa are among the states that activated the law yesterday. Crucially, as the law could apply to collective action, 14 NATO states are among those activating the law.
Peters said officials were working on how New Zealand might ratify the law if it were to do so.
‘‘New Zealand supported the inclusion of the crime of aggression in the Rome Statute when it was negotiated in 1998 and actively participated in the Review Conference in Kampala in 2010,’’ Peters said.
Domestic law changes would be needed to enable Cabinet to ratify the amendment.
‘‘New Zealand (unlike some other states) is not able to ratify the crime of aggression amendments without first putting new legislation in place. This would involve amendments to our International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act 2000.
‘‘Officials are studying the options and implications in order to provide advice to ministers.’’
Former Green MP and diplomat Kennedy Graham said, if the law was in effect, the invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s and the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia could have seen leaders punished, although security council members would likely be able to wriggle out of legal responsibility.
While the United States and Russia are not members of the International Criminal Court, the UK and France are.
‘‘Aggression’’ did not include simply making aggressive statements to ratchet up international tensions.
‘‘It’s about bombing cities and crossing territories . . . it has to be an act,’’ Graham said.
He said New Zealand had a history of supporting and strengthening the international rules-based order to live up to.
If we ratified the bill it meant that New Zealand leaders would think twice before committing forces – even as part of a group of nations – to wars that might end up in The Hague.