49 Facts About Al Gillespie

Al Gillespie is currently pro vice-chancellor for research and professor of law, specialising in international law related to war, the environment and civil liberties, at the University of Waikato.

Al Gillespie has served on international delegations including UNESCO, advised the New Zealand government on social issues and made a number of appearances before the Waitangi Tribunal.

Al Gillespie has won international and New Zealand awards in recognition of his understanding of how international law impacts society.

Al Gillespie obtained Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws degrees with honours at the University of Auckland, and a PhD at the University of Nottingham.

Al Gillespie undertook post-doctoral studies at Columbia University in New York City.

Al Gillespie has advised the New Zealand Government on legal matters and provided some commissioned work for the United Nations.

In 2005, Al Gillespie was named rapporteur for the World Heritage Convention as part of UNESCO.

Al Gillespie was a professor at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University for six months, spanning 2018 and 2019.

Al Gillespie has been involved in advising the New Zealand Government on social issues and in 2018 was acknowledged for his work on reviewing an earlier draft of A Zero Carbon Act for New Zealand: Revisiting Stepping stones to Paris and beyond, a report prepared for the New Zealand Government by Simon Upton in his capacity as The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.

Between 2016 and 2018, Al Gillespie provided advisory assistance to Tuhonohono, a research project that aimed to establish how matauranga and tikanga Maori could be fully applied in the marine environment of New Zealand, specifically in regard to compatibility with marine policies and law in the country.

Al Gillespie, who made an appearance in front of the Waitangi Tribunal on this claim, suggested that before responding to the report, the New Zealand Government should consider how Canada, Australia and the United States had dealt the same issues.

When Geoffrey Millar wrote in The Asian Media Centre in 2021, that the crisis in Afghanistan was likely to result in a "big change in New Zealand's geopolitical landscape", he cited an article in which Al Gillespie said that New Zealand had an ethical obligation to take more refugees.

Al Gillespie told the NZ Herald that New Zealand and other countries needed "to decide what conditions they consider basic before deciding if the Taliban are legitimate and they can enter the international stage".

Al Gillespie said keeping an historical perspective was important and with Putin unrestrained by the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015 which had left the issue of Ukraine's sovereignty unresolved, the verbal agreement from NATO in 1994 not to expand had never being formalised.

Al Gillespie said Putin was looking to make a mark in history and establish a sphere of interest rather than rebuild the Soviet Union.

Al Gillespie warned that a failure to do this, could create a precedent for other countries to carry out invasions.

Al Gillespie predicted that Ukraine would be taken over by Russia and NATO should look to increase its influence.

Al Gillespie later acknowledged that autonomous sanctions being put in place outside of the United Nations process was a break with "diplomatic tradition", but New Zealand could offer non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine, manage the legalities around New Zealand citizens wanting to fight in Ukraine, take more refugees and consider import duties on permitted Russian imports.

On Newstalk ZB, Al Gillespie was not prepared to predict what Putin was going to do, and stated that the sanctions did not amount to a "declaration of war" as claimed by Putin, but were an effective non-military intervention which would have considerable effect on Russia.

Al Gillespie has stated that the situation in Ukraine highlighted the relative impotency of the United Nations to live up to the principles in the founding Charter because of the power of veto over Security Council actions or intentions.

Al Gillespie contended that an independent third party such as the International Criminal Court should deal with disputes about how these rules were being applied, but noted that Russia had withdrawn from the Court, reflecting "just another measure of how far the observation of the laws of war [had] been eroded in Ukraine".

One year after the Russians invaded Ukraine, and the invoking of the UN Charter and international law to achieve a sustainable peace seemed unlikely, Al Gillespie wrote that New Zealand, along with other Western countries, had to re-consider its approach to the conflict.

Al Gillespie acknowledged that while the country did not send troops to the area, neither had it taken the position of neutrality, or "remained indifferent to the aggression and atrocities, or their implications for a rule-based world".

One important consideration for New Zealand Al Gillespie suggested, was the review of its defence budget and whether it was sufficient to retain collaborative arrangements and alliances.

Significant to Al Gillespie, was how New Zealand diplomatically developed its vision of peace and dealt with [the] "hard questions about territorial integrity, accountability for war crimes, reparations and what might happen to populations that [didn't] want to be part of Ukraine".

At the time of writing, Al Gillespie noted that China's role and intentions in the area were uncertain and if they supplied arms directly to Russia, New Zealand would be under pressure to take measures that could adversely affect their trading relations with them.

The final consideration noted by Al Gillespie was that the nuclear threat should be taken seriously by New Zealand [because] "if the Ukraine war [spun] out of control, [the country] would be in an emergency unlike anything [it had] witnessed before".

Al Gillespie accepted it was a challenge for New Zealand not to offend China, either as an important trading partner or more traditional allies, but said it would be reasonable for Five Eyes to expect New Zealand to regularly speak up on such issues.

Al Gillespie said China had a history of attempting to assimilate Muslim populations into a "collective identity" that resulted in many improvements for the Chinese people, but because New Zealand was somewhat hamstrung by an economic dependency on China, they were reticent to criticize them for alleged human rights, often in contrast to the approach of Australia.

Al Gillespie predicted that while in principle, putting pressure on China to be more open was correct, the response of the New Zealand government was likely to be cautious.

On 28 June 2023, immediately prior to the New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins meeting with Xi Jinping, Al Gillespie wrote that the meeting was an opportunity to build on previous economic cooperation between the countries, with China likely to value New Zealand's input into discussions around possible peace initiatives in Ukraine.

Al Gillespie noted that New Zealand had reiterated its position that under international law they effectively rejected China's historical claims of sovereignty over some islands in the South China Sea.

When New Zealand went into its first lockdown in March 2020 during the government's management of COVID-19, Al Gillespie said that people could be fined under laws at the time for flouting the lockdown rules, but suggested Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern could declare a state of emergency and issue an epidemic notice under the 2006 Epidemic Preparedness Act.

Al Gillespie suggested that under emergency legislation to manage the pandemic, people in the country could have some infringements of their rights, however as long as the restrictions remained "precautionary and in proportion to the risk, it [was] unlikely they will be challenged seriously".

Al Gillespie had previously told The Panel on RNZ that there were three rules in New Zealand sthat needed updating to manage the pandemic.

Al Gillespie accepted that in future, laws in these situations would need more scrutiny and oversight.

Al Gillespie was not surprised that an online poll of 525 people in February 2022 had shown 28 percent opposed the vaccine mandates in place in New Zealand and 29 percent supported the protest on the lawns of Parliament.

Al Gillespie made the case that, while the right to protest was not covered specifically by law, it was generally recognised as a "manifestation of the rights to freedom of movement, association and peaceful assembly in most liberal societies", protected globally by the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in New Zealand, by the Bill of Rights Act 1990.

Al Gillespie contended that while New Zealand's support for Ukraine had been good, "it will need to be better to fall in line with NATO expectations of its partners".

Al Gillespie suggested the second pillar acknowledged that the range of threats, "from terrorism and climate change to attempts to subvert New Zealand democracy", reflected a wider threat to a "rules-based international system" and challenged many assumptions upon which the country's foreign policy had been based.

The third consideration identified by Al Gillespie was that New Zealand needed to reassess their partnerships with other countries, accept isolation was not an option and explore more collaborations [to] "address shared security challenges".

Al Gillespie said it indicated "a genuine shift towards more open and public discussion of these crucial policy areas", and along with the other documents released, provided a perspective on the country's place in a "fast-evolving geopolitical landscape".

The assessment did show awareness of espionage activities and Al Gillespie concluded [that these by] "foreign intelligence agencies against New Zealand, both at home and abroad, [were] persistent, opportunistic and increasingly wide-ranging".

Questions about the level of support New Zealand provided to Ukraine, what their position toward the conflict would be if there was a change of government in the US, and issues around trade and sanctions were seen by Al Gillespie as needing positions from political parties.

In light of the country's response to climate change being assessed as "highly insufficient", Al Gillespie said the interrelated challenges of dealing with climate change and foreign aid would require clear answers from politicians, particularly where they stood in relation to the Green Climate Fund and the Global Methane Pledge.

Al Gillespie noted that the amount of its gross income New Zealand allocated for aid to developing countries was currently below the OECD average, and said voters needed to know whether the country would increase or decrease this.

In 2019, Al Gillespie won the Francqui medal, known as the International Francqui Professor Chair.

Al Gillespie was awarded The New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fellowship in 2003 for his research into "legal principles, policy and science of biodiversity, wildlife and ecosystems within international law", and the selection panel, comprising Sir Ivor Richardson, Justice Bruce Robertson and Professor Richard Sutton, said Al Gillespie's application showed that he had "the rare ability to synthesise the interdisciplinary science, law and social policy issues involved".

Al Gillespie considers why humanity has struggled to achieve sustainable development over several thousand of years, and takes the approach [that] "economic, social, and environmental conundrums have stalled the quest for the long term viability of both our species and the ecosystems in which we reside".