Alexander M. Gillespie is a New Zealand legal academic. He is currently professor of law, specialising in international law related to war, the environment and civil liberties, and firearms, at the University of Waikato. He 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. Gillespie frequently takes public positions on global conflict, climate change, refugees and environmental issues in the New Zealand media and has published seventeen books. He has won international and New Zealand awards in recognition of his understanding of how international law impacts society.
Education and career 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. He undertook post-doctoral studies at Columbia University in New York City. As of 2022, Gillespie is a professor at the University of Waikato, and an external member of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law, a research centre hosted by Auckland Law School at the University of Auckland. He has advised the New Zealand Government on legal matters and provided some commissioned work for the United Nations. In 2005, Gillespie was named rapporteur for the World Heritage Convention as part of UNESCO. Gillespie was a professor at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University (Department of European, Public and International Law) for six months, spanning 2018 and 2019. He said of his time at Ghent, that he was impressed by young Belgiums as "agents of change...[who were]... very pragmatic, with a healthy distrust of authority".
Advisory roles 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, Gillespie provided advisory assistance to Tūhonohono, a research project that aimed to establish how mātauranga and tikanga Māori could be fully applied in the marine environment of New Zealand, specifically in regard to compatibility with marine policies and law in the country. In a report of the research it was concluded that there needed to be "more inclusive and better resource management policies, practices and laws that enable the accurate application of tikanga and mātauranga Māori to the governance and management of the country's land-based and marine ecosystems...[and the]... emphasis should be on power-sharing arrangements that are suitable for Māori, suitable for the environment and therefore suitable for the nation". The report suggested that government statutes and regulations should be reviewed to ensure decisions were consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi.
WAI 262, commonly referred to as The Indigenous Flora and Fauna and Cultural Intellectual property Claim , was lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal on 9 October 1991 by six iwi in New Zealand. The report on the claim released in 2011, recommended: Reform of laws, policies or practices relating to health, education, science, intellectual property, indigenous flora and fauna, resource management, conservation, the Māori language, arts and culture, heritage, and the involvement of Māori in the development of New Zealand's positions on international instruments affecting indigenous rights. 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. While he acknowledged the report had identified the problems, Gillespie said answers were needed, and "from his study of environmental customs and traditions in different countries...[he hoped]... to come up with a set of options for solutions".
Public policy positions Afghanistan 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 Gillespie said that New Zealand had an ethical obligation to take more refugees. Gillespie wrote that it was likely Afghanistan would see a major increase in people fleeing persecution, [and] "the list of who could be considered traitors or face persecution by the Taliban [was] long. They [included] religious and ethnic minorities, dissidents, women, journalists, human rights workers and those previously in positions of power....[and these people]...are at risk largely because of their support for the Western presence in Afghanistan that New Zealand was part of". 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".
Ukraine On 30 January 2022 Gillespie said he was "optimistic" that possible issues between Russia and Ukraine could be solved with diplomacy that found a "middle ground...about arms control and confidence building with military exercises". After Russia invaded Ukraine on 22 February 2022, Gillespie was asked in a radio interview what he thought Putin's intentions were. He 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. Gillespie said Putin was looking to make a mark in history and establish a sphere of interest rather than rebuild the Soviet Union. The role of the United Nations in managing this situation was seen by Gillespie as ineffective due to several countries voting against the resolution by the Security Council demanding that Russia immediately end its military operations in Ukraine, and the challenge for this body was to uphold the UN Charter and become united in protecting the sovereign rights of countries. Gillespie warned that a failure to do this, could create a precedent for other countries to carry out invasions. He predicted that Ukraine would be taken over by Russia and NATO should look to increase its influence.
When the New Zealand Government passed a law allowing sanctions to be imposed on Russia, Gillespie urged caution against "anti-Russian hysteria", and that following due process and fairness was important, and a wealthy Russian may not necessarily be pro-Putin. 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 also 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, 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.
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. He held as of 2 May 2022, that "Russian president Vladimir Putin [had] run his tanks over the fundamental principles of the UN Charter and disobeyed the International Court of Justice because of the unbridled power of veto...[against]...the last proposed Security Council resolution Russia...[which]...affirmed the territorial sovereignty of the Ukraine and condemned Russia's invasion as a violation of the United Nations Charter".
As Russia's blockade of food supplies leaving Ukraine looked likely to cause famine beyond the country, Gillespie said that while this is an "atrocity...[and]...invasions and war crimes are recognised as breaches of international law... causing famine as collateral damage in countries not directly related to the war is not a recognised crime". In the same piece, Gillespie did note that Geneva Conventions had prohibited the starvation of civilians as a method of war and Russia did support that in 2018. There was acceptance that these rules applied generally but were about protecting civilians within warzones, not to "prevent collateral damage to distant populations unconnected to a conflict....so while starvation of an enemy is not new, starvation of vulnerable but distant civilian populations is...it's partly a symptom of [a] globalised world, where interconnection, vulnerability and outdated or inadequate rules and restraints are all colliding".
When there were claims and counter claims by both Ukraine and Russia about the treatment of prisoners of war, Gillespie said that the Third Geneva Convention (1949), to which both countries are signatories, set up rules to respect the rights of prisoners. He 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, Gillespie wrote that New Zealand, along with other Western countries, had to re-consider its approach to the conflict. He 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 Gillespie suggested, was the review of its defence budget and whether it was sufficient to retain collaborative arrangements and alliances. From that point, he said, the country's government must decide if it was going to move beyond being a regional 'police officer' [and] "carry its fair share of being part of an interlinked modern military deterrent". This would also require a review of the contribution to humanitarian assistance, possibly resulting in more direct funding or widening the visa arrangements to allow a greater number of refugees from Ukraine into New Zealand. Significant also to 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". This piece by Gillespie was cited in State of Threat The Challenges to Aotearoa New Zealand's National Security (2023) supporting the contention that while New Zealand's contributions of aid to Ukraine were proportionately lower than other countries, they did show a commitment to ending the conflict. At the time of writing, 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 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".
New Zealand's relationship with China