This report argues that, despite recent moves meant to show progress towards post-war reconciliation and respect for human rights, Sri Lanka’s government has not altered the authoritarian direction of its policies, and the rights and security of all communities remain under threat. Executive summary Sri Lanka’s ethnically-exclusive regime continues to close political space and consolidate...

A decade after the successful peacekeeping mission, and a year and a half before the window opens for a referendum on Bougainville’s political status, the peace process is dangerously adrift. In this paper, Peter Jennings and Karl Claxton set out a plan to help deliver a sustainable solution for next steps in the peace process...

This research paper addresses some of the key military, political, and diplomatic aspects of Australia’s drawdown in Afghanistan, and provides some early indications as to what the post-2014 mission could look like. Introduction Australia first sent troops to conduct operations in Afghanistan in 2001, as part of a multinational response targeting al-Qaeda in response to...

This report argues that the rapid proliferation of new districts in Papua is strengthening the political influence of highlanders at the expense of the traditionally dominant coast, but it is also producing new conflicts and complicating the search for peace. Introduction The carving up of Papua into smaller and smaller units, each with its own...

This report examines the trajectory of the Syrian conflict in the wake of the Russian and US agreement to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons. It argues that while that agreement, enshrined in Security Council Resolution 2118, may remove a pernicious class of weapons from the Syrian battlefield, it will do nothing to end the conflict or...