Global Issues

Milton Osborne mischaracterises the Mekong River Commission when writing last month in The Interpreter that the regional organisation “ignores reality”. To say we were “celebrating” the health of the river at our Mekong Day event on 5 April overlooks the fact that on that day I continued to

The Shanghai lockdown following a Covid-19 outbreak last month saw the most stringent restrictions placed upon a Chinese city since the pandemic began. Although Chinese civil society may be heavily circumscribed, a stituation exacerbated by Covid, civic action and protests have continued to occur

Stories of children finding the bullet-ridden bodies of their parents, repeated rapes, and airstrikes have revealed the horrors of Russia’s invasion to the world. In the two months since forces rolled into Ukraine in February, satellite images have shown bodies lining the streets of Bucha, while

Labor has described Solomon Islands’ security pact with China as Australia’s biggest foreign policy failure in the Pacific since the Second World War, but this is hyperbole. Australia’s biggest foreign policy failure in the region – ever – is its failure to address (at both a national and

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to a food shortage – or crisis for some – in unexpected places across the world. For wheat, maize, barley and sunflower oil, Russia and Ukraine are among the biggest global producers. Russia is also the world’s top exporter of fertiliser and

When in 2016 the Arbitral Tribunal issued its watershed ruling in the case between the Philippines and China, responses from the international community were lacklustre. The Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative’s “arbitration support tracker” suggests that eight governments have publicly

In recent years, the rise of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing activities, transnational organised crime at sea, expansion of terrorist networks and activities by sea, and increasingly belligerent assertions of unilateral maritime claims have prompted coastal states in the East Asian

The term “lawfare”, and its etymology in the term warfare, has traditionally been perceived as negative, based on the notion that it meant the misuse of law or legal institutions to achieve a military or operational objective. Law as a “weapon of war” inevitably conjured up images of the law

Dystopias make for popular fare. One needs only look at popular video games to see a common theme: Fallout’s nuclear wasteland, Mass Effect’s alien invasion, or Horizon Zero Dawn’s machine apocalypse. The protagonist must resolve problems, recruit allies and build capability to prepare and

Thucydides is considered the father of a “realist” approach to the theory and practise of international relations. One of his more celebrated observations was that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. More than two thousand years later, residents of Ukraine may

The humanitarian community has been challenged by major shocks in the past two years – the Covid-19 pandemic, a military coup in Myanmar, an invasion of Ukraine only the most prominent. These events, together with climate change as a threat multiplier, are changing the operating environment for

Australia has long claimed a special relationship with Pacific island countries as their largest regional trade, investment, security and development partner. But these same countries have been frustrated and disappointed by Australia’s failure to address the issue which poses the gravest single

Moscow’s latest invasion of Ukraine has turned Vladimir Putin’s Russia into a pariah state, essentially overnight, and seen the country saddled with an unprecedented international sanction regime. The long-term implications of freezing cooperation and dialogue with Russia are significant –

Russia is committing atrocity crimes in Ukraine, but they do not constitute genocide. While that distinction matters little to people caught up in this brutal armed conflict, analysts and policymakers must be aware of the difference and tailor their response accordingly. The use of cluster

Last month, another major report on the state of the world’s environment was published – a new assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with the dry title of “Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability”. Based on 34,000 studies, it shows the vast global suffering and

Demolition job It’s now only about 16 months since the newly elected Joe Biden team created a ripple of excitement in Washington by registering buildbackbetter.gov as the first sign of the ambitious new “New Deal” underway. The catchphrase for Biden’s roughly US$2 trillion Rooseveltian

In 2000, the establishment of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda by the United Nations Security Council created formal institutional space for the recognition and inclusion of women in addressing violence and building peace. Fifteen years later, the establishment of a Youth, Peace and

Mediation to end armed conflict has traditionally been dominated by men. With the conflict in Ukraine currently consuming global narratives on everything from human rights to defence of the so-called international rules-based order, the voices of women in this space remain, as is so often the case,

As the West braces for a possible escalation of Russian ransomware attacks in retaliation for support to Ukraine, the first meeting to negotiate a new global cybercrime treaty began quietly last week at the United Nations in New York – a new treaty ironically pushed on the international community

Until this week, everyone thought the European Union’s Temporary Protection Directive was dead in the water. Drafted 21 years ago in the aftermath of the Yugoslav crisis, it was European countries’ collective call to action if they were ever faced with large-scale refugee arrivals again. But

In September this year, UN member states will cast their votes for the next secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). While elections for bureaucratic positions in obscure, technical UN bodies normally pass unnoticed, the ITU has emerged as the major battleground in