RODNEY HIDE: Whatever they come up with

https://x.com/henrycooke/status/2103716319233511722?s=42

It took thirty seconds. Under a marquee, the Prime Minister was asked whether he agreed with the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Yeah," said Christopher Luxon. "We support the international rules-based system, so that means we support the ICC and the ICJ. And they are the right people to make those determinations. And that's why we support whatever they come up with."

Would he arrest Netanyahu? "As I said, we uphold international… we believe in rules-based systems, so I've said that very clearly in the past that… we uphold the ICC and the ICJ." Then: "Alright, thanks mate." And he was gone.

This isn't new. In December 2024, asked the same question at his post-Cabinet press conference, Mr Luxon said New Zealand supports the ICC "and we would be obligated to do so." Netanyahu would be arrested. Nearly two years on, with France, Germany and Hungary all finding their way to a different answer, he was asked again. He hadn't moved an inch, and he still hadn't thought about it. "We support whatever they come up with."

Consider what the Prime Minister has signed up to. He's not saying New Zealand will meet its legal obligations. Every government says that. He's saying the court's judgment is New Zealand's judgment, sight unseen, whatever it turns out to be. No New Zealand prime minister would say that about our own Supreme Court. Governments respect court rulings, but they don't hand over their thinking in advance. Yet Mr Luxon offers exactly that to a court in The Hague that no New Zealander elected and none can remove.

And it's hardly a settled court on a settled question. Israel has never joined the ICC. The court claims jurisdiction only because it chose in 2015 to treat "Palestine" as a member state. That is a political decision dressed up as a legal one, and many serious international lawyers dispute it.

The court is also meant to be a court of last resort. Under what is called complementarity, it is supposed to step in only when a country cannot or will not deal with its own people. Israel is a democracy with an independent judiciary, a judiciary so independent that in 2024 it struck down Netanyahu's own government's judicial reform. You can think many things about Israel's courts. You cannot seriously claim they don't exist.

Then there's the enforcement. The rules-based order Mr Luxon speaks of so reverently is applied when it suits. Mongolia is a member of the ICC. It rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in 2024, despite an ICC warrant, and nothing happened. France, a founding champion of the court, says Netanyahu enjoys immunity. Hungary welcomed him and then announced it was leaving the court altogether. Germany's Chancellor said he would find a way for Netanyahu to visit.

These governments are not rejecting international law. They are doing what governments do. They are exercising judgment. They are weighing the law, their interests and their friendships, and they are answering to their own voters for the result. Our Prime Minister alone seems to think that judgment is someone else's job.

The irony runs deeper. The rules-based order was not handed down from Mount Sinai. It was built, underwritten and defended by American power after 1945. The United States has never joined the ICC, rejects its claim over Israel, and has sanctioned its officials. When Mr Luxon invokes the rules-based order, he is invoking a system built by the country that most loudly rejects this court's case, against a fellow democracy under attack.

It's worth remembering that the ICC prosecutor also sought warrants against the leaders of Hamas, the men who planned the slaughter of 7 October. The court put an elected leader of a democracy alongside the organisers of a massacre. Our Prime Minister's answer is that the court is "the right people to make those determinations."

I spent many years in Parliament fielding doorstop questions. They come fast and they are meant to trip you up. That's why you prepare for them, and why you revisit your answers when the world changes. The Netanyahu question was entirely predictable. The Prime Minister has had nearly two years to watch other democracies weigh it up and reach their own conclusions. He could have done the same. He could at least have said that New Zealand would meet its legal obligations and decide any actual case on its facts.

Instead, he reached for the same slogan and, in doing so, gave away something that isn't his to give.

Sovereignty is not a flag or an anthem. It is the simple principle that decisions affecting New Zealand are made by people New Zealanders elect, and who can be thrown out when they get it wrong. It's the government's job to weigh our laws, our interests and our values, and then to stand up and defend its call.

"Whatever they come up with" is the opposite. It is a blank cheque written to strangers.

Mr Luxon likes to say he's a chief executive who gets things done. A chief executive who told his board he'd back whatever the consultants came up with would not last long. New Zealanders should expect more of their Prime Minister than that.

Rodney Hide is a former Minister and ACT Party leader