Labour has been accused of ‘gutless’ actions after voting down a law to make it easier to target international violators outside the United Nations – but says it is moving ahead with its own plans for action
The Government has for the second time killed off a proposal for New Zealand to establish its own autonomous sanctions regime – but claims it is considering the creation of its own laws to tackle human rights violators abroad.
National MP Gerry Brownlee’s Autonomous Sanctions Bill failed to pass its first reading on Wednesday night, defeated by 77 votes to 43.
Brownlee’s member’s bill, largely identical to legislation the Government had quietly killed off late last year, would have created a way for New Zealand to impose sanctions against other countries or organisations without action from the United Nations Security Council.
Proponents of autonomous sanctions have pointed to the veto powers of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members stymying sanction attempts, while critics suggest a move towards unilateral actions would further undermine the international order.
Speaking in favour of his bill, Brownlee said the legislation would “provide a significant extra tool in the tool kit of diplomacy” and further burnish New Zealand’s reputation for an independent foreign policy.
While there had been many positives to come out of the UN, it fell well short of expectations around the punishment of human rights abusers and international rule breakers, with the P5 having vetoed resolutions over Russia’s occupation of Ukraine, the Syrian civil war and Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.
“In all these circumstances, it’s the citizens of the country in question that suffer from the United Nations’ inaction, and the political motivations of the permanent members will leave that always to be the case.”
Brownlee suggested the Government was most concerned about responding to the situation in Xinjiang, with China refusing to entertain the drafting of a Security Council resolution questioning abuses against Uyghur Muslims.
“In all these circumstances, it’s the citizens of the country in question that suffer from the United Nations’ inaction, and the political motivations of the permanent members will leave that always to be the case.”
The law would also allow New Zealand to impose sanctions against individuals, regimes or entities which threatened the stability of the Indo-Pacific, similar to legislation already in places like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and European Union.
Outlining Labour’s opposition to the bill, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the world had changed dramatically since Brownlee’s bill was first drafted under the National government in 2012, with a global pandemic, economic coercion and geostrategic positioning in the Indo-Pacific region among the factors at play.
New Zealand would need to consider how a sanctions regime might affect the country’s economy and exporters, Mahuta said, along with how any such legislation would fit with New Zealand’s value-based approach to foreign policy and the rules-based order.
“Aotearoa’s record on the world stage shows we are most effective when we take this approach internationally [and] exhaust our diplomatic tool kit to influence and lead change.”
The country’s pre-existing “tool kit” of actions included travel bans, the redirection of aid, diplomatic representations and recourse through multilateral institutions.
Any autonomous sanctions regime would be an option of last resort rather than a substitute for multilateral action, Mahuta said, and “should not be called upon by outsiders beyond New Zealand to strong arm our own interests”.
The Government was considering what more it could do to support human rights around the world, including what role an autonomous sanctions regime could play.
“So I’m not ruling it out; it is just that the bill falls short of expectations on that front.”
Human rights issues were not explicitly included within the scope of Brownlee’s bill, while its focus on the Asia-Pacific region was likely too narrow and it did not cover emerging risks such as threats to cyber-security, Mahuta said.
ACT foreign affairs spokeswoman Brooke van Velden appeared unimpressed with the minister’s comments, describing them as “gutless” and connecting them to a government decision to water down the MP’s motion condemning genocide in Xinjiang earlier this year.
“If she has a problem with the bill, that is why you send it to select committee; if it doesn’t go far enough, send it to the select committee. Don’t go opposing this bill just because you might be scared.”
New Zealand’s foreign policy needed to uphold both the safety of its citizens and the country’s interests and values like human rights, individual freedoms and democratic liberties, van Velden said.
“The bill makes an approach that is counter to standing up for fair, cooperative, transparent reform of international institutions based on the rule of law. Instead, it encourages a global landscape where each nation acts alone to exert its own political and moral interests.”
While the country had a history of working with the UN to maintain international order, the veto powers of the P5 meant peace and security was sometimes not upheld within their own countries.
“We shouldn’t shy away from the big problems; they will always be there, but we need new ways of upholding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.”
Speaking against the bill, Green Party MP Teanau Tuiono said unilateral actions undermined the global rule of law and international cooperation.
“The bill makes an approach that is counter to standing up for fair, cooperative, transparent reform of international institutions based on the rule of law. Instead, it encourages a global landscape where each nation acts alone to exert its own political and moral interests.”
Tuiono said larger nations like the US and China would be unlikely to have sanctions imposed against them given the power structures at play, and New Zealand should instead “engage meaningfully in reforming those power dynamics within legitimate international institutions”.
Responding to the debate on the bill, Brownlee said Mahuta’s remark that sanctions were a last resort implied New Zealand was currently left “ominously silent” given the absence of such tools, while he also questioned her suggestion that trade considerations would be a constraint over implementing a sanctions regime.
“What’s that mean? It means that the Government has made a conscious trade-off between making statements about things that we consider important as a nation and the dollars that come into this country.”
