Graham Kennedy: General Debate 
Graham Kennedy: General Debate 
[Volume:656;Page:5901] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 I rise to explore further some of the issues that were debated on the last members’ day concerning the issue of aggression through the use of armed force and New Zealand policy on this matter. On 19 August Government MPs expressed some views on the matter of aggression and it may be worth—respectfully—seeking to correct any misunderstandings on their part in this respect. Their view was essentially that observing the crime of aggression imposed unacceptable political constraints on our national leaders. It is I think salutary to reflect on the global movement that is gathering pace in criminalising aggression and to realise where the international community actually stands in 2009. 
For most of the history of human conflict—for the better part of 5000 years—there has been what is best described as the “free market of war”: political and military power combined in the one person who has been always free to engage in indiscriminate slaughter with impunity. The measure of greatness was in the art of conquering. It is only in the last two centuries or so—almost in the blink of an eye—that it has dawned on our nations that we should develop a political framework to avert war. Yet war remained lawful. It is in fact only in the last century that humankind has sought to make war illegal. The League of Nations commenced that movement yet war remained legal if all avenues of pacific settlement had been exhausted. It was within the living memory of only the older generation among us that war was finally made illegal; under the United Nations Charter there is only the legal and the illegal use of force. 
In 1947 the trials of Nuremberg and Tokyo made it clear that aggression was a crime in customary international law and that leaders would henceforth be called to account as individuals for such a crime. We have hanged people in that name. In 2002 the International Criminal Court came into force with jurisdiction to adjudicate on the three core crimes: genocide war crimes and crimes against humanity. Under the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court there is a fourth crime for which the court will soon have jurisdiction: the crime of aggression. The preconditions are twofold: agreement on a definition and agreement on the jurisdictional relationship between the UN Security Council and the special prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The necessary work is almost complete on this and it is expected that at the review conference in Uganda in May or June 2010 the 109 countries that are members of the court will adopt aggression as a crime justiciable by the court. When that happens these 109 countries will proceed to implement that international agreement in their domestic law thereby making aggression a crime in their own domestic penal codes. 
New Zealand is one of these countries. We have maintained a longstanding policy under both Labour and National Governments since the early 1990s of unswerving support for the International Criminal Court and for its jurisdiction over the four crimes of greatest concern to humanity. That includes aggression; aggression will be a crime. I mention this background because sooner or later—perhaps next year or a little later but before very long—this Government will be required to agree along with all other 108 States that are parties to the International Criminal Court that aggression is a crime. That crime will be a crime in domestic law in the first instance and an international crime through the International Criminal Court in the second instance. It is therefore important that any comments that Government members make in this House on the question of aggression remain consistent with longstanding New Zealand policy and do not make that policy look inconsistent when the Government confronts this issue in the very near future. Thank you.