The author argues that the new Labor government should initiate a regional climate pact, established within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change/Kyoto Protocol framework aiming at both mitigation and adaptation. He examines possible models for such a pact, and argues for the inclusion of major emitters Australia and Indonesia and a diverse group of...

The first public crack in Australian political elite's repudiation of nuclear weapons since the Canberra Commission, if not the signing of the NPT itself, has come from a surprising source: a former advisor to Gareth Evans and a disarmament policy specialist in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. After a brief, apparently tough-minded tour...

Carolin Liss of Murdoch University writes that 'combating piracy is a difficult and complex task, requiring more than the patrolling of piracy-prone waters.' Liss argues that five factors 'are of particular importance in shaping piracy in Southeast Asia: over-fishing, lax maritime regulations, the existence of organised crime syndicates, the presence of radical politically motivated groups...

William Tow, of the Australian National University argues that the March 2007 Japan-Australia Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation was symbolic of one of two possibilities that Australia foreign policy must chose between: 'a strategy of regional engagement designed to pursue community-building and avoid security dilemmas, or one that designates China as a rising strategic challenge...

Robert McClelland, ALP Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, writes that 'the Howard government is worse than ambivalent when it comes to nuclear non proliferation - it is positively obstructive.' International security has, he notes, 'been made more volatile by a combination of nuclear proliferation and the involvement of non-state actors' 'as the number of potential...