Media Releases

Air NZ “bought share of the blame” for Yemen humanitarian catastrophe with Saudi contract – Oxfam

February 12, 2021

Air New Zealand’s contract with the Saudi military is an unacceptable breach of international obligations and New Zealanders’ trust, said Oxfam today, as the aid agency called for the government’s investigation to be made public.

The $3m contract, signed by Air New Zealand in 2019 to repair critical engine components for Saudi naval vessels, is more than twice the value of New Zealand’s humanitarian assistance last year to the conflict in Yemen – the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“With one hand, New Zealanders are donating critical funds through government and humanitarian agencies to save lives in Yemen, while with another, a New Zealand company, of which the New Zealand government is a majority stakeholder, is supporting a military accused by the UN of war crimes during this crisis,” said Oxfam New Zealand’s executive director, Rachael Le Mesurier. “The New Zealand public deserves an investigation that answers the question of whether or not this country has failed to live up to its legal and ethical obligations to the international community.”

Le Mesurier said the fact Air New Zealand could not answer whether its remaining military contracts were aiding international humanitarian crimes must spark a bigger conversation about how we hold New Zealand businesses to account. “It all points to the need for stronger measures to monitor and ensure New Zealand corporate compliance with human rights in their overseas operations.”

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia and its military coalition partners have been parties to the conflict in Yemen’s vicious civil war, leading the fighting and preventing shipments of life-saving supplies by air, land and sea– committing, the UN say, clear violations of International Humanitarian Law.

“Yemenis were looking to the people and Government of New Zealand to help put a stop to these outrageous violations; not enable them,” said Le Mesurier. “By providing services to the Saudi Navy, implicated in potential war crimes, Air New Zealand has bought a share of the blame for the resulting humanitarian catastrophe.”

After more than five years of war, over 24 million Yemenis – eighty per cent of the population – are in need of humanitarian assistance, with almost 4 million people displaced and half a million facing starvation. Saudi Arabia’s military has enforced intermittent blockades on Yemen’s ports, disrupting humanitarian access and preventing imports of food, water and medical supplies.

Le Mesurier said while it was good that Air New Zealand has since cancelled work on the contract, and the Government has announced it is investigating, it raises serious questions about the processes in place to monitor such deals. “Oxfam welcomes these first steps, but this contract suggests that many serious ethical failures occurred at many levels,” she said.

“Both Kiwis and the people of Yemen deserve better from the New Zealand government and the companies they trust. The prime minister must urgently deliver answers on whether this contract violated New Zealand’s international legal obligations, such as under the Arms Trade Treaty; and whether export control procedures were followed, and on what basis the contract was approved.

“If Air New Zealand – a company in which the government itself owns the majority of the shares – can circumvent export controls, what confidence do we have other companies aren’t doing the same?”, she asked.

Ibtisam Sageer Al Razehi, a 35-year-old former teacher and mother of three, lives with her children in the remains of the family house in Sa’ada city in Yemen, which was damaged by missiles and artillery fire. Her husband was killed by an airstrike in 2015.

“I lost my husband, my children lost their father, we lost the breadwinner and because of war I also lost my salary as our last hope for living,” she said.

“Humanitarian aid has decreased a lot; now we receive food every two months instead of every month. I appeal to the world to have mercy on the children of Yemen and stop this war. We are very tired of living in war for years, we lost everything beautiful in our lives, even the simple hope of peace.’’

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Notes to editors:

Article 6 of the Arms Trade Treaty prohibits the transfer of arms to countries where there is awareness of any war crimes or other serious violence against civilians. However, even where this threshold is not reached, Article 7.1 further requires that state parties ‘pursuant to its national control system, shall, in an objective and non-discriminatory manner, taking into account relevant factors, including information provided by the importing State in accordance with Article 8 (1), assess the potential that the conventional arms or items: […] could be used to:
- commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law;
- If, after conducting this assessment and considering available mitigating measures, the exporting State Party determines that there is an overriding risk of any of the negative consequences in paragraph 1, the exporting State Party shall not authorise the export.

For more information, or to arrange an interview please contact:

Kelsey-Rae Taylor on [email protected] or 021 298 5894

Monopolies causing “artificial rationing” in COVID-19 crisis as 3 biggest global vaccine giants sit on sidelines

February 5, 2021

The supply of safe and effective vaccines for all is being artificially rationed because of the protection of exclusive rights and monopolies of pharmaceutical corporations, the People’s Vaccine Alliance said today.

The alliance warned that the three biggest vaccine companies in the world are largely sitting on the sidelines – they currently plan to produce enough COVID-19 vaccines for only 1.5 per cent of the global population in 2021. A number of other large manufacturers are not yet producing any of the successful, proven COVID-19 vaccines.

At the same time, the producers of approved vaccines, Pfizer/ BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, aim to produce enough doses to vaccinate around a third the global population. But because rich countries have bought multiple doses of these vaccines the actual figure of humanity covered is a lot less. While Astra Zeneca has sold the majority of its doses to developing countries, Pfizer/ BioNTech and Moderna have sold almost all of their doses to rich nations, while failing to share their successful technology openly, despite huge public subsidies. Their vaccines are prohibitively expensive for many poor nations.

In the face of worldwide vaccine shortages and dramatic moves by the EU to restrict vaccine exports, the alliance, which includes the health NGO EMERGENCY, Frontline AIDS and Oxfam urged governments and the pharmaceutical industry to scale up production. It said they should remove the artificial barriers to tackling the global supply crisis, including by suspending intellectual property rules, sharing technology and ending monopoly control, so that everyone, everywhere has access to the vaccine as quickly as possible.

This week the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom has said that sharing of technology and waiving of intellectual property will make vaccinating the world and controlling this disease possible.

Anna Marriott, Oxfam’s Health Policy Manager said: “The world is in a race to reach herd immunity to get this disease under control, save millions of lives and get our economy going again. This is a race we have to win before new mutations render our existing vaccines obsolete. Yet the pursuit of profits and monopolies means we are losing that race.

“People out there would be forgiven for thinking that every major vaccine company is working flat out to vaccinate the world, but this is simply not the case. We need every company on earth who can make safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 to be making them right now. We urgently need to lift the veil of corporate secrecy and instead have open-source vaccines, mass produced by as many vaccine players as possible, including crucially those in developing countries.

“By refusing to share their technology and waive their intellectual property, companies like Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, are artificially rationing the supply of successful vaccines with the hopes of reaping huge financial rewards. This is despite both benefiting from huge public subsidy. This will cost lives and prolong the economic pain which is hitting the poorest hardest.”

The three biggest global vaccine producing pharmaceutical corporations by market value are GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Merck and Sanofi and between them they have only pledged to produce 225 million vaccines this year. Earlier this week GSK announced that it will be working with CureVac to develop a vaccine to tackle emerging variants of COVID-19 next year and will help manufacture up to 100 million doses of CureVac’s vaccine which is still in clinical trials.

Last week Sanofi announced a deal to help produce 125 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, but this is a drop in the ocean in comparison to the scale of need and will likely only benefit EU countries. Before setbacks in the clinical trials of their own potential joint vaccine, Sanofi and GSK had supply deals to produce almost five times as many doses than they are offering to produce of Pfizer and CureVac’s COVID-19 vaccines respectively.

Merck, the second biggest vaccine company in the world had been building up capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses of one or both of its COVID-19 vaccine candidates, but the company recently announced it would be discontinuing development of these vaccines due to poor trial results.

GSK, Sanofi and Merck have received over $2billion from the US government as part of its Operation Warp Speed to support production of vaccines.

Meanwhile the Danish pharmaceutical company Bavarian Nordic this week offered up the capacity to produce 240 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in its factory, but none of the successful vaccine companies have taken up the offer so far.

More than 108 million people have been vaccinated so far, but only 4 per cent of total vaccinations have been in developing countries, the vast majority of which have been in India. Of the poorest countries in the world only Guinea has been able to vaccinate 55 people [1]. Rich countries have bought up enough doses to vaccinate their populations three times over, leaving developing countries to compete for the leftovers. Analysis by the Peoples Vaccine Alliance has shown that the limited supply of the approved vaccines means that unless action is taken only one in ten people will be vaccinated by the end of the year in many developing countries.

It is also likely that potential capacity in developing countries is being overlooked. The Serum Institute of India is already producing hundreds of millions of vaccines for COVID-19 on behalf of AstraZeneca and Novovax as well as developing their own, but there are at least 20 more vaccine manufacturers in India. Many other vaccine producers in developing and rich countries may already have or could quickly increase capacity to manufacture proven safe and effective vaccines if they had the know-how and intellectual property licenses. Globally, UNICEF data suggests just 43 per cent of reported COVID-19 vaccine production capacity is currently being used for the approved vaccines [2].

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is calling on US President Joe Biden and the governments of the UK and EU to use their emergency powers and to leverage their massive public funding to put pressure on Pfizer/ BioNTech, Astra Zeneca, Moderna and other subsequently successful vaccine producers, to openly share their vaccine science and technology, to waive their patents and insist that all other major vaccine producers get involved in production. President Biden could use the Defense Production Act to help maximise the production of vaccines in the coming months.

Lois Chingandu, Director of Frontline AIDS, said: “Over $100 billion of taxpayers money has funded these vaccines, while the companies behind the three successful vaccine candidates are set to make over $30 billion in revenue this year alone.

“Public investments mean these are public goods, which should be used to benefit all humanity, not private property there to benefit shareholders. Leaders must act now to override this broken system of patents, monopolies and secrecy to deliver a People’s Vaccine for all.”

Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech use mRNA technology, which potentially allows production to be rapidly scaled-up. Yet both companies are not committed to openly sharing their technology, leaving many potential producers on the sidelines.

The alliance is also calling on the US and other governments like Germany to invest in new production facilities especially in developing countries, in order to massively scale up the production of safe and effective vaccines and to build infrastructure that can respond better to future pandemics.

Heidi Chow, Senior Campaigns and Policy Manager at Global Justice Now, said: “Business as usual is not enough in a global pandemic. In times of war, manufacturers have often put aside normal competition to work together for a common cause. Surely governments should be insisting that the same spirit applies today, when so many people’s lives and livelihoods are at stake?”

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For more information, or to arrange an interview please contact:

Oxfam: Kelsey-Rae Taylor on [email protected] or 021 298 5894

Notes to editors:

The Peoples’ Vaccine Alliance is a coalition of global and national organizations and activists united under a common aim of campaigning for a ‘People’s Vaccine’. The call for a People’s Vaccine is backed by past and present world leaders, health experts, faith leaders and economists. For more information visit: https://peoplesvaccine.org

Global deaths from COVID-19 according to : https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-region?time=2020-01-23..latest

Due to corporate secrecy it is unclear how much spare capacity exists, but the world’s COVID vaccine production capacity could be significantly expanded if all companies that were able to join the manufacturing effort, including critically developing country producers. Evidence shows this need not take time. Sanofi’s announcement that it will be making Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines by July 2021 demonstrates that transferring the vaccine technology and scaling up production can happen in a matter of months. It took the German Pharma firm BioNTech just four and a half months to repurpose a new plant to scale up production of COVID-19 vaccines. The example also shows that previous vaccine experience is not a necessity in making mRNA vaccines, meaning that the net can be cast much wider in the search for additional expert capacity if the intellectual property and technology is shared.

The figure of 1.5% is based on pledges from GSK & Sanofi to produce 100m & 125m doses respectively, which adds up to 225m doses. Both vaccines require 2 doses, so the reach would be 112m people, or 1.5% of the global population.

[1] As of 4^th February, Bloomberg’s global vaccine tracker reported a total of 108 million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered across 67 countries. Only 4.4 percent of vaccinations have been in developing countries, with 3.8 million of these vaccines being given in India. Of the poorest ‘low income’ countries, only 55 vaccines have been given in one country– Guinea. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

[2] Numbers taken from UNICEF vaccine dashboard https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashboard on 4th February

We compare projected production capacity for all Covid-19 vaccine candidates with the capacity for those vaccines that are already approved.

According to several articles, Danish firm Bavarian Nordic has offered the use of a newly-operational factory, which It says could produce 240 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine per year: https://www.thelocal.dk/20210202/danish-company-offers-to-help-with-covid-19-vaccine-production

NGOs win historic victory against French State for failing to tackle climate change

February 4, 2021

Court battle backed by 2.34 million people – largest petition in French history
Landmark case will pile pressure on other governments to act faster

A landmark ruling today has found the French State at fault for failing to take enough action to tackle the climate crisis. The decision by the French court will serve as a warning to other governments to do more to reduce carbon emissions in line with their public commitments, said Oxfam France, a plaintiff in the case.

In December 2018, Oxfam France, Notre Affaire à Tous, the Nicolas Hulot Foundation and Greenpeace France launched a legal action against the French State for failing to reduce the country’s emissions fast enough to meet its commitments. More than 2.3 million people signed a petition supporting the action – the largest in French history.

It is the first time the French State has been taken to court over its responsibility on climate change. Today’s decision leaves the government open to compensation claims from French citizens who have suffered climate-related damage, and could force it to take further steps to reduce its emissions.

Cécile Duflot, Executive Director of Oxfam France, said: “Today’s decision is a historic victory for climate justice. For the first time, a French court has ruled that the State can be held responsible for its climate commitments. This sets an important legal precedent and can be used by people affected by the climate crisis to defend their rights. This is a source of hope for the millions of French people who demanded legal action, and for all of those who continue to fight for climate justice around the world. It is also a timely reminder to all governments that actions speak louder than words.”

The ruling comes as many countries are preparing more ambitious targets to reduce emissions, as required by the Paris Agreement. Governments are due to meet in Scotland later this year for the COP26 climate summit. Scientists and NGOs say the targets already announced – known as Nationally Determined Contributions – fall short of the cuts needed to avoid catastrophic global warming.

The French government’s proposed climate law is, by its own admission, not enough to achieve its target of cutting emissions 40% by 2030. Even this target is not enough to put the country on track to tackle the climate crisis, Oxfam France said.

This decision also serves as a timely reminder to all European governments and the European Commission to take their international commitments seriously and to lead in the fight against the climate crisis. The current EU climate target of a 55% cut to emissions is ambitious, but still falls short of what is needed to keep global temperature rise below 1.5C.

The French State has two months to appeal the court’s decision. While the four NGOs have asked the court to order the State to take additional measures to fulfill its climate commitments, the court decided to reserve its decision on this point for later in the Spring, to allow for further discussions between the French State and the NGOs.

Duflot said: “Following today’s breakthrough, we now hope the courts will compel the Government to take further steps to reduce emissions and ensure that France is living up to its commitments.”

Oxfam launched the legal action because the climate crisis is fueling poverty, hunger and inequality around the world. Often it is the poorest countries that have contributed least to the crisis that pay the highest price. In September 2020, Oxfam revealed that the richest one percent of people produce more than double the emissions of the poorest half of the world population combined.

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Notes to editors:

Spokespeople are available in France and Brussels to comment.

In December 2020, EU leaders agreed on a new EU emissions reduction target of ‘at least 55%’ below 1990 levels by 2030. Oxfam estimates that cuts of more than 65% are needed for Europe to contribute its fair share of global emissions cuts needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.

This case in France follows a similar ruling in the Netherlands in 2019, in which the Supreme Court ordered the government to ramp up its emissions reduction target. There is also a similar case coming up in a Belgian court to enforce more ambitious climate policies. The number of climate litigation cases has doubled since 2017, according to a recent report by the UN Environment Program. As of July 2020, at least 1,550 climate change cases had been filed in 38 countries.

Oxfam’s report in September 2020, Confronting Carbon Inequality, found that the richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest 3.1 billion people during a critical 25-year period of emissions growth.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Kelsey-Rae Taylor on [email protected] or +6421 298 5894.

Oxfam response to Climate Commission draft report

February 3, 2021

Oxfam welcomes the release of the Climate Change Commission’s draft report on cutting New Zealand’s pollution, but says that doing our fair share for 1.5 degrees means much more ambitious action is needed now than the Commission currently recommends.

Oxfam New Zealand Campaigns Lead, Alex Johnston, said: “We can use this report as a launching pad to step up our efforts to tackle global heating, but doing our fair share is going to mean a lot more than tinkering around the edges. We must move faster to get policies implemented.”

Johnston said: “The Commission’s plan will not meet even our existing Paris Agreement target for 2030, which the Commission themselves found to be inconsistent with global efforts for limiting heating to 1.5 degrees.

“The draft emissions budgets leave the bulk of pollution cuts for later in the 2030s. That means we’re also relying on New Zealand purchasing offshore carbon credits to meet our 2030 Paris target, leaving other nations to make up the shortfall.

“This is a blow to those in the Pacific and other countries on the frontlines of climate change, as New Zealand is burning through much more than our fair share of the remaining carbon budget this decade,” said Johnston.

“We can bring forward a whole lot of the policies the Commission recommends, like no new coal and gas installation anywhere, phasing out gas-guzzling cars, and properly pricing agricultural emissions. What’s more, we can invest the billions we’d have to pay in offshore carbon credits to surge ahead in our domestic transformation with a just transition to a thriving, low-emissions society,” Johnston said.

He added: “This domestic action must go alongside standing with the people who are right now experiencing the impacts of climate breakdown: that means at least doubling our climate finance for those in the Pacific and developing countries worldwide.”

Johnston said it was encouraging to see the Commission’s consideration of global equity in its recommendations to increase New Zealand’s Paris Agreement targets, but that the analysis did not filter through into the domestic emissions budgets that the Commission drafted.

He said: “When we consider New Zealand’s fair share of global efforts to limit heating to 1.5 degrees, our action at home needs to be scaled up. The Commission has rightly placed importance on global equity in the need to boost our international action, but hasn’t yet reflected this in their domestic emissions budgets, which are too low to even meet our current international target.

“If New Zealand is to do our fair share to protect our planet and build a safe climate future, we need a cohesive and ambitious plan with global equity at its heart.”

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Notes to editors:

The Commission’s first three emissions budgets use the interquartile range of IPCC 1.5-degree pathways. This assumes that New Zealand would decarbonise at average rate, not taking into account our status as a highly developed country. By contrast, the NDC analysis, finds that Aotearoa should make significantly deeper reductions by 2030 than the average country, due to the country’s economic capacity.
The Commission suggested NZ’s Paris Agreement target should be increased to much more than 35% reductions below 2005 levels by 2030. Oxfam’s estimates of New Zealand’s fair share are of at least an 80% reduction below 1990 levels by 2030, or 99% when historical responsibility is taken into account.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Kelsey-Rae Taylor on [email protected] or +6421 298 5894.

42 organisations and noted experts call on NZ Govt to support a People’s Vaccine

January 29, 2021

An open that was delivered to Prime Minister Ardern and Ministers Mahuta and O’Connor, a letter signed by 42 organisations and noted experts requesting that Aotearoa New Zealand support a People’s Vaccine by backing the waiver proposed by India and South Africa at the WTO to relax certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID-19.

Click here to download The People’s Vaccine open letter

Wealth of New Zealand’s richest person soars by $3.4bn since beginning of pandemic

January 25, 2021

New Zealand’s richest citizen, Graeme Hart, has seen his fortune increase by NZ$3,494,333,333 since March 2020 – a sum equivalent to over half a million New Zealanders receiving a cheque for NZ$6,849 each, reveals a new analysis from Oxfam today.

The New Zealand analysis precedes a global report being published by Oxfam at 1pm NZT today, released to coincide with the opening day of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Davos Agenda’. It shows how the rigged economic system is enabling a super-rich elite to amass wealth in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression while billions of people and businesses are struggling to make ends meet.

Oxfam spokesperson Dr Joanna Spratt said it is a symptom of a broken economic model that a small handful of individuals are able to dramatically increase their wealth at times of unprecedented global need.

“While the super-rich amass vast fortunes even during times of global crisis, essential services like healthcare, education and social welfare go underfunded,” Spratt said.

“Across our region people are facing immense challenges, from the demand for foodbanks in New Zealand cities to those rebuilding their homes in Fiji following Cyclone Yasa. The hardships caused by coronavirus and climate destruction hit people with the least the hardest.

“But the unequal impacts are not inevitable. Our leaders can change our broken economic system that allows a small number of people to accumulate such extreme wealth, which is far beyond what any one person might need.

“Together we have the resources we need to give everybody the same opportunities to not only survive, but thrive,” she said. “The question is how we fairly distribute our resources. People built this system, so we have the power to fix it.”

Spratt said overseas aid and public services at home in New Zealand were often set off against each other in times of financial constraint to illustrate a false point that it must be one or the other.

“If we choose not to accept the such extreme inequality, then we can reprogramme our economic system to create a world where everyone – here at home and overseas – can live a life of dignity. Collectively we have more than enough wealth to do this. We can overcome challenges at home and also do our bit for our region, supporting our Pacific neighbours who endure significant hardships from the coronavirus and recession, on top of those that climate destruction is causing,” she said.

“Oxfam and a coalition of our country’s leading aid agencies have been calling for the government to increase its overseas aid and climate finance to meet this time of unprecedented global need – yet the total sum being requested to help the world’s most vulnerable people is just one third of what Hart earned on top of his existing billions in only ten months during the pandemic. This isn’t right.”

Spratt said creating a fairer system was a matter of political leaders having the courage to reign in excessive wealth and build a “human economy” that benefits everyone, not just a fortunate few.

“In the lead-up to the Pacific Island Forum leader’s meeting in early February, we call on our political and business leaders to choose to leave no one behind as we recover from the coronavirus pandemic and work to stop climate destruction,” she said.

“We must shift our priorities towards building an economy that puts people first – a human economy where wealth is no longer so concentrated in the hands of a fortunate few, and everyone has access to basic services like healthcare and education, in New Zealand and around the world.”

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Notes to editors:

Oxfam’s calculations are based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available. Population data comes from Statistics NZ. Figures on the very richest in society come from Forbes’ 2020 Billionaires List. Because data on wealth was very volatile in 2020, the Credit Suisse Research Institute has delayed the release of its annual report on the wealth of humanity until autumn 2021. This means that we have not been able to compare the wealth of billionaires to that of the bottom half of humanity as in previous years.
Oxfam, World Vision, Christian World Service and the Anglican Diocese of Wellington are leading the year-long campaign to improve New Zealand’s overseas aid and overseas climate action funding at www.bighearts.org.nz, with CARE, Christian Blind Mission, Engineers Without Borders New Zealand, FairTrade Australia NZ, New Zealand Family Planning, Hagar New Zealand, Rotary New Zealand World Community Service, Tearfund, Trade Aid, and UnionAID.
New Zealand currently gives approximately 0.28% of Gross National Income to overseas aid. The internationally agreed target is 0.7% of GNI to overseas aid.

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Kelsey-Rae Taylor on [email protected] or +6421 298 5894.