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New Zealand is hosting a top-level international security meeting focused on preventing the illicit spread of weapons of mass destruction, writes Foreign Minister Winston Peters.
Security officials from 20 countries will gather in Auckland today for a meeting of one of the lesser-known but most important global campaigns against terrorism.
The Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI, was set up to help prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, it works to prevent the illegal transportation between countries of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and their components and delivery systems. It applies to air, sea and land transport, but its greatest application is with shipping.
The PSI is only four years old, but since its creation in Poland in 2003 it has expanded rapidly. Now around 80 countries either belong to its most active grouping, the Operational Experts’ Group, or give the initiative their support.
New Zealand is fortunate to be part of this group, where we can have a real say in how the PSI is managed.
In common with the other Expert Group members (which include Australia, Japan, Singapore, Argentina, the UK and the United States) and PSI supporters, New Zealand believes that terrorism and ‘rogue states’ are among the greatest current threats to peace and stability.
The PSI is not an organisation with offices and staff, and it does not create any new legal rights. It is an initiative founded on participants’ careful analysis of international law and their own domestic laws, and it creates a cooperative framework for the interception of cargo containing weapons of mass destruction.
For New Zealand, a key accomplishment of the PSI is that in a short time it has forged a strong network of cooperation among members. This enables effective information sharing, not only between the governments and security agencies of different member countries, but also between governments and the private sector, for example the transport industry.
The result is that if weapons of mass destruction are being moved illegally around the world, the PSI provides a mechanism to ensure that its members and supporters know about it quickly. That knowledge, and the cooperation of others involved in the initiative, helps governments take lawful action to stop the cargo.
There is no doubt that the PSI has made life much more difficult for those involved with the illegal transportation of the worst weapons of our time.
The fact that there is a very good chance of such weapons shipments being detected and seized provides a powerful disincentive to anyone trying such behaviour in the first place.
Some might wonder, however, why New Zealand, many thousands of kilometres from the current centres of global conflict, needs to be involved in the PSI. The answer is that standing aside from an initiative such as this would be to ignore the changing nature of global terrorism.
In recent years it has become clear that no region or country can consider itself isolated from the criminal and terrorist networks that trade in weapons of mass destruction, or safe from being caught up in an attack that could involve nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
New Zealand is a major transhipment point into and out of the Pacific. This in itself places a responsibility upon us to be vigilant. It also has to be remembered that as terrorists come under ever-greater pressure from security agencies, they are widening their search for ‘safe’ transport routes for weapons and components.
While there is no evidence that New Zealand has been targeted by these networks, there is no doubt that our defences could be tested.
We are working with our Asia-Pacific colleagues in the PSI to make sure that the initiative is as strong as it can be in this part of the world.
We hope that as the initiative becomes better known and understood, other countries in our part of the world will come on board. A larger membership will expand the network of cooperation and further strengthen the PSI.
It is a young initiative. It still needs to grow to reach its full potential. But in just four years it has become an indispensable part of the global campaign against weapons of mass destruction.
New Zealand and New Zealanders are safer because of it.
