Government-appointed experts back contentious sanctions law

Wednesday, 6 March 2024

A Government-appointed expert panel has recommended New Zealand adopt a politically contentious sanctions law that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is wary of.

The report on ways to expand New Zealand’s diplomatic “tool kit”, written by experts appointed by former foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta, was published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Monday.

Already Peters has expressed a lack of enthusiasm for a major recommendation of the report: that the Government should legislate an “autonomous sanctions” law that would allow New Zealand to level sanctions against countries outside of a United Nations sanctions regime, if Parliament agrees to the move.

“It has an attraction until you realise how it could cause enormous delay and enormous amount of work, when everybody starts screaming out for a sanction they want, on a cause that they're in love with, and nobody else is,” Peter said.

He said “there’s no doubt” that New Zealand could come under pressure from partner nations to apply certain sanctions if it had such a law.

New Zealand does not have an autonomous sanctions law, as some partner nations including Australia do, that would allow it to undertake “unilateral” sanctions in circumstances where a contested Security Council blocks the UN process from doing so. The only occasion New Zealand has passed law to do this was against Russia in 2022 for its invasion of Ukraine.

Prior governments have expressed a wariness about taking unilateral sanctions actions outside of the UN, and there has been concern that New Zealand might feel pressured into acting against its interests if it did - such as applying sanctions to its largest trading partner, China, as countries like the United States have done.

The National Party, prior to entering government, advocated for an autonomous sanctions law, but since forming a coalition with ACT and NZ First has not pursued this policy.

“It looks superficially attractive. We have looked at it and we're still considering it, but we've not made a decision yet,” Peters said.

A previous attempt to legislate an autonomous sanctions regime was quashed by the prior Labour government, but then-foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta sought advice to expand New Zealand’s diplomatic “tool kit” to respond to issues such as human rights abuses abroad.

The report was written by an advisory group made up of former New Zealand representative to the UN Colin Keating, former human rights commissioner Rosslyn Noonan, director of the Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies David Capie, and solicitor and UN representative Valmaine Toki.

The experts outlined ways the Government could a take a more “proactive, preventive approach” to responding to serious human rights abuses abroad, before using a “carefully limited” sanctions law that would only be triggered by Parliament - not just the Government - as a last resort.

Peters on Tuesday said he had yet to consider the report.

“We will consider it in the fullness of time but we're flat out at the moment trying to organise overseas trips.”