New Zealand votes against international law

Over fifty years ago, Britain stole the Chagos Islands and forcibly expelled their inhabitants to Mauritius to make way for a US military base. Since then, they've been fighting for justice through the UK courts, and most recently at the UN. Last night, they won another victory, with the UN General Assembly voting 94 to 15 to seek an advisory opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague on the UK's actions, which appear to breach international law. Sadly, New Zealand voted against the motion:

#UNGA votes overwhelmingly to refer the questions of #Chagos #selfdetermination and decolonisation of #Mauritius to #ICJ pic.twitter.com/oEarRFurUc

— Philippe Sands (@philippesands) June 22, 2017

I guess this is National's foreign policy now: voting to cover up the colonial crimes of our former masters. Its sickening. We're supposed to stand for a law-governed world, and that means supporting international law, no batter who benefits. Instead, we're just sucking up to the powerful and being their dogsbody.

As for how to fix this, if we want to change our foreign policy direction, we need to change the government. It is that simple.