Worth Richard: Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Worth Richard: Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7377] 
RICHARD WORTH (NZ National—Epsom) 
: 
 The previous speaker was good enough to say without reason—perhaps because he had no reason to offer—that he supported this bill. It is great to come to a position with no reason for coming to that position. On behalf of National I would like to start by congratulating the new member who has joined Parliament today and express the hope that when she gives her maiden speech that this bill the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill might be one of the issues she takes up and talks about. The bill is probably the very first of the bills she will hear debated in the course of what I do not doubt will be a long and distinguished parliamentary career. 
The need for this legislation arises as a result of the enactment 3 years ago of the International Crimes and International Criminal Court Act. But for that Act we would not be hearing these comments today. The purpose of that legislation was to do two things: first to make provision in New Zealand for the punishment of a number of international crimes that either were not in their own right crimes or were not well spelt out in that way and they touched on issues of genocide crimes against humanity and war crimes; and second to enable New Zealand to cooperate with the International Criminal Court which was established by the Rome Statute. 
So it was that the International Crimes and International Criminal Courts Act was passed in the year 2000. The statute itself deals with international crimes and offences against administration of justice. It deals with arrest and surrender of persons to the International Criminal Court with domestic procedures or other types of cooperation and with enforcement of penalties including interestingly in a restorative justice context orders relating to victim reparation. So we see in that legislation something I learnt only 12 hours ago in Korea where people in the streets were wearing T-shirts that had written on them: “Freedom is not free” and that is assuredly so. 
Of relevance in the context of the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill that we are now debating are those parts of the year 2000 statute that have a clear New Zealand involvement. The two principal parts of that Act that deal with this issue are Part 7 which is all about serving sentences imposed by the International Criminal Court in particular the enforcement of sentences in New Zealand and Part 9 which deals with the investigations or sittings of the International Criminal Court in New Zealand. That is likely to be a rare event but it will certainly be possible. 
I have greater faith than the ACT party speaker who made critical comments about this legislation and expressed the hope that it would not pass because unlike him I do have a high degree of confidence in the institution and organs of the United Nations and similar international bodies. It seems to me to be drawing a very long bow to say that soldiers deployed in the last week to the Solomon Islands to deal with issues of law and order and to seek to make the peace might face criminal prosecutions in respect of war crimes. After all the personnel who are there were invited at the behest of the Solomon Islands Government and they are there with the committed support of the surrounding States in the South-west Pacific. 
The bill itself amends the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act—an Act that is certainly in the context of this Parliament quite old legislation that has not been much amended. Annexed to that statute are the schedule provisions that pick up the relevant conventions including the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Optional Protocols Done at Vienna. There to be found are privileges such as those that exist in respect of criminal prosecution and they put on a diplomat who crosses the line the clear choice of facing criminal prosecution or else maintaining diplomatic immunity with the consequence of recall to the sending State. 
 We are looking at changes to the principal Act that revolve around section 10. Clause 3 repeals section 10D and substitutes new sections 10D and 10E. Section 10 has of course been earlier amended; we would not be talking about numbers like 10D and 10E were that not so. It was section 10A that provided facilitation of international inspectors under disarmament treaties section 10B that provided privileges and immunities of judges prosecutors and staff of the International War Crimes Tribunal and section 10C that provided privileges and immunities of members of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. This is the second crack at getting privileges and immunities of judges prosecutors and staff of the International Criminal Court right. Section 10D as it was passed was clearly unsatisfactory so we face a new section 10D of remarkably greater scope. 
Dr the Hon Lockwood Smith has probably made a very fair point in his criticisms not of new section 10D but of new section 10E which is extraordinarily widely worded. I express the hope that it may very well be that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee will look in a hard-nosed way at that particular provision to see whether its width is really justified. 
The final issue I wish to speak about and note is that whilst Australia has—apparently with some reluctance—been prepared to sign up to the International Criminal Court the United States has held out. It holds out I suggest for reasons that in the context of the world community are not wholly satisfactory. I hope that the select committee has a very hard look at the reasons that compelled the United States Government to that course. That course may be understandable in the United States context but it equally may not be. I say “may not be” because New Zealand is one of those countries that have peacekeepers in many many nations—in more nations than the United States currently has. Our recent activities in the last 10 years have seen international peacekeepers posted to some of the toughest and harshest areas of the world. Angola is a very simple illustration of that. The sorts of pressures that our peacekeepers came under in Angola were certainly comparable with the very worst circumstances that existed in the Vietnam War for example for some of our personnel deployed in that station. So I express the hope that the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee will when it considers the Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Amendment Bill look hard at those reasons that have impelled the United States’ action and be thoroughly satisfied that this provision is an appropriate change to be made to our longstanding statute on diplomatic privilege and immunity. 
Bill read a first time and referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee