Small pieces of a big puzzle
The affairs of small states are often overlooked as an area of academic research, but Professor Petra Butler from the Faculty of Law is on a mission to make sure the smaller nations of the world have a strong voice.
Victoria University of Wellington, and has also been co-director of the Centre for Small States based at Queen Mary University in London, which conducts research into the legal issues facing small states. The Centre’s other co-director, Dr Caroline Morris, is based in London but originally from New Zealand and is a Victoria University of Wellington alumna.
Petra says she first became interested in small states when she moved from her native Germany to New Zealand. “Coming from a country of 82 million people and then coming to New Zealand with around four and a half million—even New Zealand was a pretty small state for me. I could see that some things worked differently, and so I got quite interested in it.”
The Centre defines small states as nations that have a population of 1.5 million or less. Many of the world’s small states are located in the Pacific or the Caribbean, but some are in Europe (for instance Liechtenstein and Andorra) and Africa (for example Seychelles and the Gambia). The Centre mainly focuses on legal issues but it is also interdisciplinary, and has worked closely with two other small-state research centres based in Malta and Iceland, which focus on economic issues and international relations respectively.
Petra says there are many compelling reasons to study the issues faced by the world’s small states. “The interesting thing is that everything that’s pertinent for small states is an issue for big states as well. What you can say is that if you find a good solution for small states, generally speaking it will be a good solution for big states too.”
Petra describes the most pressing challenges facing most small states as “capacity issues in every form—especially monetary and people capacity”. She says small states often struggle to find a varied economic base that is linked to the global market but can withstand global crisis. As an example she notes the Caribbean financial services market, which is dependent on the United Kingdom for access to the EU financial market. “With Brexit, they’re losing their inroads to the EU and have to completely recalibrate,” she says.
Small states also face challenges around governance and having good independent structures in place. Petra gives an example from the Pacific region, where many small states lack the entire range of international dispute resolution mechanisms. “At the moment many Pacific states don’t have the structures to provide the entire range of tools in the international dispute resolution regime. They need this so their businesses can take part in the global economy, but also so that they attract investment,” she says.
Petra has been working with other researchers in the Pacific to try to improve international arbitration structures there. Another area of concern for many small states is the changing environment. “Because most of the small states are island states, there’s also the booming issue of climate change and sea-level rise,” says Petra.
Some of Petra’s colleagues from the Faculty of Law took part in the Pacific Climate Change Conference in February this year, which was co-hosted by the University and sought to address some of these issues. Sir Geoffrey Palmer gave a keynote address at the conference about the need to develop a firm legal framework that addresses climate change, while Professor Alberto Costi spoke about action needed to protect low-lying atoll nations from sea-level rise. Other staff in the Faculty of Law are also working on research connected to small states. Catherine Iorns has organised two conferences around small states and environmental issues for the Centre for Small States, and is also the Centre’s advisor on climate change and the environment. Petra says the Centre has been a great way to bring Victoria University of Wellington law academics and alumni together to focus on small states research. “It’s created a forum for research—we try to be a bit of a clearing house for small states issues,” she says.
Another driver behind the Centre is giving people from small states a platform to share their views and build capacity. Petra and Caroline are also the series editors of The World of Small States, which is published by Springer. “It gives authors from small states a home to publish their research,” says Petra.
Alongside this, the Centre organises regular conferences on topics relating to small states, such as the recent conference on environmental dispute resolution and small states held in London in September. Petra says she encourages researchers from small states to present at these conferences to give them confidence and see that they can hold their own on an international stage. “That is a real part of capacity building—they can then say ‘I spoke at an event in front of an international, varied audience and received positive feedback’. It’s part of the puzzle—that’s basically what we’re trying to do,” she says. Petra believes small states could have a stronger voice at the international table if they worked together. “Forty states out of 193 that make up the United Nations are small states,” she notes. “I think that’s one of the really amazing details people forget, because with 20 percent of all states in the UN being small states, it means if they were to do things together and build a bloc they would have more voting power than the European Union—and that’s something to really get your head around.”
This article was originally featured in the 2018 edition of our annual alumni magazine, V.alum. If you would like to receive V.alum, either electronically or in hardcopy, please sign up here.