ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the role and effect of international human rights standards in relation to New Zealand legal and political sovereignty. The international community has adopted, multiplied, and extended these standards with increasing effectiveness over the post-war period. The chapter sets the subject in a historical and regional context, and includes a comparison of New Zealand's present position with that of Australia, its longstanding ally, trading partner, and friendly rival across the Tasman Sea. It then deals with the ways in which international human rights standards have affected New Zealand sovereignty over the past two decades, the so-called era of globalization. This inquiry has two aspects to it. Firstly, there are the human rights-related limits on 'internal sovereignty', that is, the limits imposed from within the state in relation to the operation of state institutions and the distribution of power. Secondly, there are the limits that have been placed on New Zealand from outside New Zealand.
