Abstract
The Labour Party government of New Zealand, led by Prime Minister David Lange, was elected to power in July 1984, and shortly thereafter honored its campaign pledge to ban nuclear-powered and nuclear-weapons-armed ships from New Zealand's ports. The United States tested the Labour government's new policy by proposing a visit by the destroyer USS Buchanan in February 1985. It was refused. In December 1985 David Lange's government introduced comprehensive legislation in Parliament which, when enacted, will make New Zealand the first legally established national nuclear-free zone (NFZ). Presently, the Parliament's Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defense, chaired by M.P. Helen Clark, is receiving submissions and will hold hearings on the NFZ legislation. Concurrently, a Committee of Enquiry on the Future of New Zealand Strategic and Security Policies has been established to undertake a full, formal review of New Zealand's defense policy and the implications of the NFZ legislation. The Committee of Enquiry is chaired by Frank Corner, former N.Z. secretary of foreign affairs, ambassador to the U.S., and permanent representative to the U.N. It is expected that the Corner Committee will first make its report, and then the NFZ bill will be voted on in Parliament—sometime after the middle of this year.
Notes
New Zealand may not be the first totally nuclear-free nation. In 1979 the tinyMicroniesianRepublicof Palau, with a population of 15,000 on 170 square miles and not yet fully independent of the U.S., became the first nation in the world to adopt a constitution that creates a nuclear-free zone around itself. This constitution bans the storage, testing, and disposal of nuclear materials within its territory without the approval of 75 percent of the votes cast in a referendum. The Palauans have been under extreme pressure from the United States to revise their constitution and accept the Compact of Free Association,which would allow the U.S. to operate nuclear-powered and nuclearweapons- capable aircraft and vessels while transiting Palau. In July 1986,however, the Palau Supreme Court ruled in favor of the constitution and banned "all things sounding of nuclear warfare." For fuller accounts of the situation in Palau, see pp. 4-5 of the introduction to this issue, and the Micronesian Support Committee, Palau: Self Determination vs U.S. Military Plans (Honolulu, HI: Maka'ainana Media, 1983). —ED.