After disastrous leakages of government guns in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, Australia led the charge to help island nations lock up their small arms, building secure state armouries across the region. But of late, regional implementation of the UN Programme of Action has lagged.

The Pacific Regional Policing Initiative (PRPI) program team, consisting of contracted advisers based out of Suva, are to be commended for achieving a great deal in two and a half years. The Mid-Term Review Team (MTRT) considers that for the most part the program has delivered an effective and appropriate collection of services that are...

Illicit drug production and use in Asia occurs on a massive scale - the amount of illicit drugs produced, especially heroin and amphetamine-type substances, is measurable in many tonnes per year and the numbers of people using and dependent on illicit drugs run into the millions across the region. Issues of such magnitude challenge the...

The fundamental challenge facing the global community on climate change is how to avoid increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere at a rate swift enough to avoid climate induced changes that would be catastrophic to human life. Based on the outcomes of the Sydney meeting, the AP6 initiative does not significantly contribute to...

Nick Bisley of Monash University writes that recent security crises in the Asia-Pacific region illustrate the institutional limits of security in the region and the pressing need to rethink the broader basis of regional security and more specifically, the nature of the American alliance system. Bisley argues that security in the region requires a multidimensional...