Global Treaties and the New Zealand Constitution

This chapter explores the influence of international treaties on the uncodified New Zealand constitution. It identifies the most important treaties recognised in the contemporary age by the international community, and their general significance to global politics and international law. It explores the process by which New Zealand has dealt with such treaties in incorporating them into domestic law. It then assesses the implications of the major treaties for national sovereignty in general, and finally their implications for New Zealand constitutional thought and practice. It is contended that a far-reaching process is underway as political thought trends from national sovereignty towards some form of, as yet indefinable, shared international sovereignty and, further out, even “global sovereignty”. The seeds of a teleological evolution of the United Nations Charter are rooted in mid-twentieth century Hammarskjoldian thought, but recent decades have seen scholarly interest in the concepts of “world constitutionalism” and the “law of humanity”. These developments carry implications for both the theory of sovereignty and the relationship between legal positivism and natural law. This overall trend, hastened by compelling global transformation in the form of climate change, human security and individual criminal liability, also has implications for New Zealand constitutional thought and practice.