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191. "Failed State" and the War on Terror: Intervention in Solomon Islands

Author:
Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
A heightened sense of vulnerability to terror has touched every part of the world, including the Pacific Islands, and has linked small nations to large in new ways. Since the September 11 tragedy, concern has risen that so-called “failed states,” losing the struggle to maintain law and order at home, could become springboards for terrorism. Australia has shed its reluctance to intervene militarily in the Pacific trouble-sports—such as Solomon Islands, whose descent into chaos and violence was sparked in 1998 by civil unrest in Guadalcanal. With regional support, Australia led a mission in 2003 to restore law and order. A short-term success, the mission leaves questions about its long-term ability to achieve either well-being for Solomon Islands or security for the region. Its emphasis on shoring up a perennially weak central government, and its inattention to other pillars of Solomons society, threaten to undermine its success and create a crippling sense of dependency. For the mission to succeed, it must empower Solomon Islanders to take charge of their own destiny.
Topic:
Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, and Politics
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific, Solomon Islands, and Southeast Asia

192. The Move to Preferential Trade in the Western Pacific Rim

Author:
John Ravenhill
Publication Date:
06-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Western Pacific Rim states have been slow to participate in preferential trade agreements (PTAs). In the past four years, however, more than 40 PTAs involving these economies have been proposed or are being implemented. For the first time, Japan and China have either signed or are negotiating bilateral or plurilateral agreements. The new interest in PTAs reflects the perception that they have been successful in other parts of the world, and is reinforced by dissatisfaction with the region's existing trade groupings. Although arguments can be made in favor of PTAs, they amplify political considerations in trade agreements, may adversely affect the political balance in participating countries, impose costs on nonparticipants, and deplete scarce negotiating resources. Nevertheless, the number of western Pacific Rim states participating in PTAs continues to climb. Northeast Asian countries have been following Europe in exploiting loopholes in WTO rules on PTAs to protect their noncompetitive sectors, thereby strengthening their political positions, which will likely make global liberalization more difficult.
Topic:
Economics and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
Japan, China, Asia, and Australia/Pacific

193. Living with a Climate in Transition: Pacific Communities Plan for Today and Tomorrow

Author:
Eileen Shea
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Earth's climate is in a state of flux. Whether in terms of relatively short-term shifts, called climate variability, or long-term climate change associated with greenhouse gases, consequences of changing climate conditions appear unprecedented. Losses due to weather-related disasters have soared recently—especially in the Pacific, where island environments, societies, and infrastructures are particularly vulnerable. For generations, human response to climate events has been just that: response after the fact to phenomena that neither residents nor scientists adequately understood. Now, a growing body of information about the causes of climate events is enabling Pacific Islanders and others to anticipate events and move past being victims to become informed planners. This new knowledge can only be successfully applied via dynamic partnerships between science and society. Particularly promising is the emerging field of climate risk management, in which disaster management and climate science communities unite, forming model partnerships to plan for the inevitabilities linked with the planet's variable and changing climate.
Topic:
Environment and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific

194. Coast Guards: New Forces For Regional Order and Security

Author:
Sam Bateman
Publication Date:
01-2003
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) created new maritime law and extended maritime jurisdiction that were ex-pected to justify naval expansion. To some extent this has been so, but another trend is also apparent. Regional navies are concentrating on war-fighting capabilities while existing coast guards are being expanded and some countries are establishing coast guards for the first time. The protection of off-shore areas and resources is a central element of national security for most regional countries and an important consideration in nation building and governance. Coast Guards are emerging as important national institutions in Asia and the Pacific with the potential to make a major contribution to regional order and security. This development reflects a concern for coop-erative and comprehensive security and will facilitate regional maritime cooperation and confidence building. It is a positive factor for regional order and security and may constitute a revolution in maritime strategic thinking.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
Asia and Australia/Pacific

195. Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense 2003

Publication Date:
09-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The Responsibility Sharing Report presents the Department of Defense's annual assessment of the relative contributions toward the common defense and mutual security by our NATO allies, our Pacific allies (Australia, Japan and the Republic of Korea), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations. The cornerstone of effective alliance relationships is the fair and equitable sharing of the full range of mutual security responsibilities, and the appropriate balancing of costs and benefits.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Japan, Australia/Pacific, and Korea

196. Asylum-seekers as Pariahs in the Australian State: Security Against the Few

Author:
Claudia Tazreiter
Publication Date:
02-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
During the last decade measures of overt and covert surveillance, information sharing and deterrence of the illegal movement of people has increased within and between states. Border security has come to dominate international relations, and increasingly to deflect the needs of asylum-seekers who search for a state that will offer them substantive protection under the Refugee Convention. Measures of internal and external deterrence diminish the reality of protection to genuine refugees as some of the most vulnerable individuals in the world today. Australia, as a country of relative geographic isolation, has not experienced the large-scale influxes of asylum-seekers seen in many parts of the world. Notwithstanding this, the Australian Government has in recent years implemented harsh policy and administrative measures directed at asylum-seekers with a substantial measure of public support. In August 2001, an incident involving 433 asylum-seekers was branded in popular discourse an 'asylum crisis'. This incident involved a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, which picked up survivors from a sinking boat who were making their way to Australian waters in order seek protection under the Refugee Convention. The Tampa was repelled by Australian security forces from disembarking the people they had picked up in distress on Australian soil. In this article, I explore the Tampa incident against the backdrop of refugee policy development from 1999. I argue that rather than responding to a crisis, the Australian government has generated the perception of a crisis in the Australian community. Implications of the Australian response to asylum-seekers are significant not only in the Asia/Pacific region, but further afield, as policy responses toward asylum-seekers by receiving states have converged in the recent past.
Topic:
International Relations, Government, Human Welfare, and Migration
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific

197. Small Arms in the Pacific

Author:
Philip Alpers and Conor Twyford
Publication Date:
03-2003
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
This study examines a wide range of small arms-related issues in 20 nations of the southern Pacific. It investigates the status of existing firearm legislation, the extent of legal stockpiles and illicit trade, and the socio-economic impacts of armed conflict on Pacific communities. Case histories examine more closely the disarmament process in Bougainville and the Solomon Islands, along with the widespread disruption wrought with small arms in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Current initiatives to combat small arms trafficking in the region are also examined.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Relations, and Arms Control and Proliferation
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific, Island, and Guinea

198. Refugees and the Myth of the Borderless World

Author:
William Maley, Greg Fry, Alan Dupont, Jean-Pierre Fonteyne, James Jupp, and Thuy Do
Publication Date:
02-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Australian National University Department of International Relations
Abstract:
Refugees are quintessentially victims of the states system. If the moral justification of the territorial state is to provide an authority accountable for the well-being of a designated citizenry, then the failure of individual states to discharge this task creates a responsibility on those who otherwise benefit from the system of states to aid those who suffer persecution in the territories in which they are nominally owed a primary duty of care. The number of refugees and other displaced persons in the world is extremely small—roughly 0.3 per cent of the world's population—but each is a precious being, and the way they are treated is a measure not of their worth, but of the moral capacity of those who are in a position to come to their assistance. Life chances in the present world order are to a significant degree arbitrarily determined by the accident of birthplace. Afghans and Iraqis, strongly represented in the world's present refugee population, are not refugees as punishment for their own failings. And ministers and bureaucrats in Western countries, typically enjoying lives of considerable luxury, are rarely well-off in recognition of their outstanding moral virtues; many simply had the good luck to be born in the right countries. If there is a global refugee crisis, it is not in terms of the number of refugees, but in terms of the willingness of wealthy and prosperous peoples to reach out to them. In the following paragraphs, I shall do three things. First, I offer brief overviews of the meaning of 'refugee' and of the current state of the world's refugees. Second, I outline the framework of institutions and measures which has evolved for the management of refugee protection and refugee needs. In conclusion, I offer some observations on the challenges which the refugee regime faces, and on the steps which need to be taken to improve the refugees' positions.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution and Government
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, Asia, and Australia/Pacific

199. The Demographic and Political Imperatives for Improving Crown-Maori Relations in Aotearoa-New Zealand

Author:
Harry A. Jr. Kersey
Publication Date:
11-2002
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Nearly a decade has passed since the United Nations declared International Year of the World's Indigenous People. Yet issues of social and economic marginalization, inequality, cultural survival, and change related to indigenous peoples continue to challenge the global community. In Aotearoa-New Zealand the Pakeha (Caucasian) settler population for many decades dominated the political landscape, leaving little voice for the nation's indige-nous Maori people struggling for greater rights. Today, however, the growing Maori population makes New Zealand the only First World country in which the indigenous people's movement for self-determination is sufficiently large to promise the possibility of major societal transformations. Over the past quarter century, regardless of which political party or coalition held power, escalating Maori demographic trends and increased political activism have encouraged the Crown to address Maori concerns and grievances.ii Today, with one out of four children under the age of five a Maori, the government has little option but to negotiate with a growing indigenous community.
Topic:
Human Rights, Politics, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
Australia/Pacific and New Zealand

200. Report on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense 2002

Publication Date:
06-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The Responsibility Sharing Report presents the Department of Defense's annual assessment of the relative contributions toward the common defense and mutual security by our NATO allies, our Pacific allies (Japan and the Republic of Korea), and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations. The cornerstone of effective alliance relationships is the fair and equitable sharing of the full range of mutual security responsibilities, and the appropriate balancing of costs and benefits.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Japan, Australia/Pacific, and Korea