Q&A: New Zealand's climate rollback and the EU trade agreement

What is this complaint about?

New Zealand made binding climate commitments to Europe in a trade agreement, and we argue that it has since broken them, several times against the advice of its own officials, including with a law that closes its courts to climate claims. We have filed the first complaint on environmental and climate grounds under the EU's trade enforcement mechanism, the Single Entry Point, to hold both governments to account: Wellington for its promises, Brussels for enforcing what it signed.

What exactly did New Zealand agree to?

Two separate commitments in the trade agreement, in force since 1 May 2024. First, not to weaken its own environmental protections in order to attract trade or investment. Second, to effectively implement the Paris Agreement and not to act, or fail to act, in ways that materially defeat its object and purpose.

Unusually for a trade deal, the commitment to the Paris Agreement carries real consequences: if an independent panel finds that a party has materially defeated the object and purpose of the Paris Agreement, the trade agreement allows, at the end of a long process, the suspension of trade benefits. That is a first in any EU trade agreement, and New Zealand negotiated it, signed it, and has presented it at home as a mark of the agreement's quality. Our purpose is to hold both parties to account on their climate commitments, not to target exports.

Who enforces those commitments, and how does a civil society organisation come into it?

Every EU trade agreement since 2011 contains a chapter on trade and sustainable development, and the European Commission committed, in its 2022 review of those chapters, to enforce them and to attach trade consequences to a partner's failure to comply with the Paris Agreement. In practice, enforcement depends on the European Commission choosing to act, and it has done so only once, on South Korea's labour commitments. So the EU has created a route for civil society: the Single Entry Point, a formal complaints mechanism through which organisations based in the EU can lodge a complaint that a trading partner is not complying with the sustainability commitments in a trade agreement.

The Commission assesses the complaint against its published criteria and responds to the complainant. That is why this complaint comes from a civil society organisation and not from the Commission itself. The mechanism exists precisely so that European civil society can require the Commission to examine whether the commitments it negotiated are being kept, rather than waiting for it to decide that on its own. Both ENDS has used it to put New Zealand's record, and the Commission's response to it, on the public record.

What does the International Court of Justice have to do with a trade deal?

In July 2025 the Court set out what the Paris Agreement requires of every state: best efforts to pursue national pledges, stringent due diligence including over private emitters, and treatment of the licensing and subsidising of fossil fuels as potentially wrongful. On 20 May 2026 the United Nations General Assembly welcomed that opinion by 141 votes to eight. New Zealand voted in favour, days after announcing the law that would bar the claims in Smith v Fonterra. Its vote recorded reservations on some of the legal issues and framing its support as standing with the Pacific; it voted in favour nonetheless. An advisory opinion is not a binding ruling, and the Court said nothing about New Zealand by name. But New Zealand voted for climate accountability at the United Nations General Assembly and legislated immunity from it in Wellington. The Paris Agreement in this trade deal is read in light of the international law New Zealand itself endorsed.

What has New Zealand done that concerns you?

A pattern, not a single decision, and one that has escalated. Since the agreement entered into force the government has reversed the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration and backed new exploration and gas import infrastructure; lowered its 2050 methane target range from 24 - 47 per cent to 14 - 24 per cent; and removed the legal requirement that its emissions trading settings accord with its Paris Agreement pledge. Then, in August 2026, the Parliament passed a law that bars tort claims for harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions and applies retrospectively to cases already before the courts, including Smith v Fonterra. Its own officials advised against several of these steps.

The Ministry of Justice advised against the law that closed the courts and had "not identified any evidence that the ongoing court proceedings have had a measurable impact on business confidence"; the government's stated objective was nonetheless confidence for businesses and investors, and its own impact statement said the law could attract international investment. That is the combination the trade agreement prohibits: weakening environmental protection in order to encourage investment.

Isn't New Zealand a climate leader?

That is what it says abroad. It presented the climate commitments in this agreement as proof of the deal's quality. It helped launch the first agreement on trade, climate and sustainability and voted for the ICJ opinion, and is the incoming chair for the Pacific Islands Forum among neighbouring countries for whom 1.5 degrees means survival. At home, over the same period, it lowered its methane target range, reopened its waters to oil and gas exploration, cut the link between its carbon market and its Paris Agreement pledge, and closed the courtroom to climate claims against its own officials' advice. We did not invent the standard New Zealand is being held to; its government proclaimed it.

Is Both ENDS accusing New Zealand of breaking the law?

We are saying the pattern of decisions appears inconsistent with binding commitments New Zealand made in the trade agreement. Whether that reaches the threshold for a breach is exactly what the complaint process exists to assess: first by the Commission, then between the EU and New Zealand, and if necessary by an independent panel whose findings are made public. New Zealand remains free to change its own laws; the question is whether those changes are consistent with what it signed.

Why is a Dutch organisation doing this?

Because the commitments at issue are the European Union's as much as New Zealand's. The EU negotiated them under its trade and sustainable development mandate, presented them to European citizens as the reason its trade agreements are good for the climate, and has committed to enforcing them. Both ENDS is a European organisation with a direct interest in whether that holds in practice.

The complaints mechanism is open only to organisations based in the EU, so a complaint can only come from the European side. We serve on the EU's civil society advisory groups under four other trade agreements, and we have spent decades working on the accountability of trade and investment agreements with partners worldwide. Organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand share many of the underlying concerns and have pursued them in their own ways; we do not speak for them, and this complaint does not require us to do so.

What does this complaint say about the EU itself?

The Commission wrote enforceable climate commitments into this agreement and presented them as proof that trade and climate can go together. This complaint tests whether the EU enforces its own signature. Asking that question is the checks-and-balances role of European civil society towards its own institutions. We are holding both parties to account: Wellington for its promises, Brussels for enforcing what it signed. If commitments that are this clear, on evidence that is this strong, are not enforced, then sustainability chapters are decoration, and we have said so for decades.

Does the complaint interfere in New Zealand's election?

No. The complaint is addressed to the European Commission, about commitments in a treaty between the EU and New Zealand. It has no power over New Zealand's Parliament, its courts or its voters, and its timing follows the adoption of a series of measures and the treaty process, not the electoral calendar. The people in Aotearoa New Zealand who support the complaint do so in their own names, about their own government's conduct.

Why does this case matter beyond New Zealand and Europe?

The EU is signing trade agreements across Latin America, South East Asia, Africa and the Pacific, and in most of them the climate and sustainability commitments carry no binding enforcement and no consequences for non-compliance. This agreement is the exception: the first where a breach of the Paris Agreement, if found by an independent panel, can ultimately cost a country trade benefits. That sits alongside obligations not to lower environmental standards to attract investment. If those commitments cannot be activated here, where the evidence is in the government's own paperwork and the partner is wealthy and like-minded, they will never be activated anywhere. Every sustainability chapter the EU signs from now on would be worth less than the paper it is printed on. That is why this case matters to communities living under EU trade agreements who are told those commitments are meant to protect them.

Is this European agricultural protectionism by the back door?

No. The complaint seeks compliance with climate commitments, not the closure of any market, and no company, farmer, grower or exporter is accused of anything. Both ENDS has spent decades criticising the EU's own mercantile trade agenda, so we would be an odd choice of stalking horse for it. The only interest this complaint serves is that climate commitments in trade agreements need to mean what they say, for both parties.

Does Both ENDS support this trade agreement?

Not as a general matter. We have long been critical of how these agreements are negotiated, with more access for business interests than for the people who live with the consequences, and of how weak their environmental provisions usually prove to be in practice. We did not campaign for this deal. But it exists, it is in force, and it contains climate commitments New Zealand's government signed and publicly claims credit for. Using the accountability tools built into it is not an endorsement of the agreement.

What about objections in New Zealand to the agreement itself, including under Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

The agreement is contested in Aotearoa New Zealand on its own terms, including on Te Tiriti grounds, and Māori organisations have made their own assessments of it. That is not ours to arbitrate, and this complaint takes no position on it. We do not claim Māori endorsement of the complaint, and nothing we publish does. Where individuals or organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand support the complaint, they do so in their own names and on their own terms.

What does the complaint ask for?

Compliance, nothing more than that: that New Zealand keep the commitments it signed and continue to claim credit for. Suspending trade benefits is the endpoint the treaty allows for at the end of a long process, but a government can stop that outcome at any point simply by complying. Compliance is the outcome the complaint is aimed at.

Would this hurt New Zealand farmers or exporters?

No individual company, farmer, grower or exporter is accused of anything. Any consequence at the very end of this process could apply to trade benefits granted to New Zealand as a country, and only after government talks, an independent panel, a public report and a period for the government to put things right. The government can exit that process at any stage by coming back into compliance. Nothing in this complaint targets any exporter; it was the government that put their market access on the table when it broke its word.

So why should New Zealanders be concerned?

Because, in our view, their government has broken commitments it made in their name, against the advice of its own officials, and has done so in an agreement it presents as one of its best. The complaint raises serious questions about New Zealand's reputation, not only on delivering its own climate commitments but on whether it keeps the obligations it enters into, and claims credit for, under the trade agreement. And the only party that can remove the risk now attached to those trade benefits is the government itself, by complying.

Can the complaint undo the new law or revive Smith v Fonterra?

No. Only New Zealand's own institutions can change New Zealand law. What the complaint can do is attach trade treaty consequences to the choices made, and put the full evidence on the public record in both Europe and New Zealand.

Has this Single Entry Point mechanism ever actually worked?

It is young, and this is its first climate test; we are realistic about that. A handful of complaints so far have mostly led to engagement rather than enforcement. But the one sustainability panel ever convened under an EU trade agreement, on South Korea's labour commitments in 2021, found a breach; what that agreement lacked was any consequence to attach to the finding. This agreement is the first to have that option. And filing has effects that do not wait for the final stage: the evidence enters the public record, the Commission assesses against its published criteria whether its flagship sustainability agreement is being breached, we publish an update at each stage, and the European Parliament can take the matter forward.

Nothing will come of this. Why bother?

Because the examination itself is the point. From the day the complaint is filed, the European Commission is examining, against its published criteria, whether New Zealand kept its word, and the evidence is on the public record in both countries. For example, New Zealand's own Foreign Ministry warned that reversing the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration could be inconsistent with commitments under its trade agreements, and the government redacted those assessments rather than publish them. The agreement New Zealand signed is the first EU trade agreement to provide that, if a panel finds the Paris Agreement has been materially defeated, the process can end in the suspension of the trade benefits it negotiated. That endpoint is a long way off, and it is avoidable at any point by compliance. What is not avoidable is the question now on the table, and it stays there for as long as the measures do.

What is the evidence?

Almost entirely New Zealand's own record. On the law that closed the courts to climate claims: the Ministry of Justice's advice against the law, which found no evidence that the court case had had a measurable impact on business confidence; the government's regulatory impact statement, which nonetheless set confidence for businesses and investors as the law's objective and said it could attract international investment; and the 93 per cent of the 623 written submissions to the Justice Select Committee that opposed it.

On the wider pattern: official advice on removing the link between emissions trading settings and the Paris Agreement pledge; the Climate Change Commission's monitoring reports; the government's own methane review, which found that the bottom of the new target range matches current global action rather than a 1.5 degree pathway, after which officials recommended a single 24 per cent target and ministers chose the range; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade assessment which warned that reversing the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration could be inconsistent with commitments under several trade agreements, including this one; Treasury's costing oas a result of the shortfall against the 2030 pledge; and the fact that trade-consistency assessments were redacted from published documents. The International Court of Justice's 2025 advisory opinion on states' climate obligations, and the UN General Assembly resolution welcoming it, inform how the Paris Agreement commitments are to be interpreted in the trade agreement.

Who is behind the complaint?

Both ENDS filed the complaint in its own name and is solely responsible for it. Only organisations based in the European Union can bring a complaint under this procedure, and no other organisation is a party to it.

The complaint is accompanied by supporting statements from organisations and individuals in Aotearoa New Zealand: the Environmental Law Initiative, Greenpeace Aotearoa, Ngāti Pūkenga Iwi ki Tauranga Trust, OraTaiao: New Zealand Climate and Health Council, Mike Smith and Professor Emeritus Jane Kelsey. A complaint stands or falls on its evidence, and those affected by these measures are best placed to give it. Each statement records, in its author's own words, how they contested these measures through New Zealand's own processes (select committee submissions, the courts and the Ombudsman) and why they support the complaint. They speak for themselves, not for Both ENDS, and Both ENDS does not speak for them.

In Europe, La Via Campesina Europe supports the complaint.

What happens next?

The Commission assesses the complaint against its published criteria and responds to the complainant. If taken up, the matter is raised through the agreement's committees, then in formal consultations between the two governments. If unresolved, an independent panel examines the matter and publishes its findings. A compliance period follows any finding of breach. Suspension of trade benefits is the last step, and avoidable at any point by compliance. There is no fixed timetable, and we will publish a short update at each stage.

For more information

• Announcement, press release
• Read the case explainer