The Cook Islands: When Is a Country Not a Country?

In mid-June New Zealand’s Bill English paid his first visit to the Cook Islands as prime minister. English’s visit, which included financial contributions to telecommunications improvements and upgrades to sewerage infrastructure, was designed as a reaffirmation of the unique relationship that exists between the two countries.

The Cook Islands is a country in “Free Association” with New Zealand. While it is a self-governing entity, having full control to create its own laws, New Zealand maintains responsibility for its defense and foreign affairs, doing so on the advice and consent of the Cook Islands’ government.

Due to this arrangement the Cook Islands is not considered a fully sovereign state and does not have a seat at the United Nations. The Cook Islands does not even have its own citizenship; instead all Cook Islanders are full New Zealand citizens. Occasionally the Cook Islands have explored the possibility of joining the United Nations; however, New Zealand has warned that doing so would mean Cook Islanders losing New Zealand citizenship.

This arrangement offers Cook Islanders the advantage of unfettered access to the education and employment opportunities of New Zealand (and Australia by way of the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement). However, it has also created an extraordinary situation where more Cook Islanders currently live in New Zealand (60,000) than in the Cook Islands (21,000). Concerns about the depopulation of the Cook Islands, and in particular the loss of its labor force, remain a prominent feature of the Cook Islands’ public narrative.

English stated during his visit that he hoped that improvements to communications infrastructure and investments in local education would have some impact in providing greater opportunities for people within the Cook Islands and reduce the need to seek opportunities outside of the islands.

What opportunities do exist in the Cook Islands primarily revolve around the tourist industry. The country is currently experiencing a tourism boom, with annual arrivals now exceeding 140,000 a year, and demonstrating significant growth from Japan. The financial contributions to improvements in communications and sewerage infrastructure that English announced during his visit were primarily driven by these increased tourist numbers.

That tourism — primarily based around its tropical climate — has become the lifeblood of the Cook Islands has also highlighted the importance of environmental protection and the health of the islands’ surrounding oceans. This has given the Cook Islands government the opportunity to attempt to shift international norms, despite its lack of sovereign status.

Although the country does not have a seat at the United Nations, the Cook Islands still participates in some of the UN’s multilateral forums, and like their South Pacific brethren they have become increasingly concerned about environmental issues.

At the UN Ocean Conference in New York in early June, Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna floated the idea that oceans should have the same legal rights as people. Puna’s proposal would expand a concept first introduced in New Zealand, where the Whanganui River was afforded the same legal rights as a human due to its cultural importance to the Maori people. This precedent set by New Zealand had an immediate impact, with India affording the same rights to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in March.

At the UN Ocean Conference, Puna argued that granting oceans legal rights “is not such a radical idea. The ocean is our provider, our sustainer, our life force. She provides for us and nourishes us. Yet we mistreat our ocean with pollution, overfishing and the impacts of climate change such as ocean acidification, coral bleaching, and more severe and frequent cyclones.”  Puna was also highly critical of the United State’s decision to remove itself from the Paris Agreement.

Over time the Cook Islands plans to dedicate its entire Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as a marine reserve, beginning with an area of 95,000 square nautical miles that will be protected from all large-scale commercial fishing and seabed mineral extraction.

Puna sees the marine reserve as a way to both highlight the problems of ocean pollution and potentially create further impetus toward this concept as a new norm within environmental legal thinking. Puna reiterated this concept during English’s visit, stating, "It became clear that maybe by floating this idea of giving the ocean legal personality so that they can have rights is maybe one way of drawing the attention of the whole world to the need, very urgent need now, for us to protect the oceans and conserve the oceans and not use it as a dumping ground."

Such bold attempts to influence international law by the Cook Islands would usually cause headaches for New Zealand due to its responsibility for the Cook Islands foreign affairs. However, as New Zealand is also a driver of this new environmental norm, the relationship should not be complicated.