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Preventing Harm From the Bombing of Towns and Cities: What New Zealand Can Do

21/8/2015

Author: Thomas Nash

New Zealand has a reputation for progressive, smart and effective foreign policy in the realm of disarmament and humanitarian affairs. It's well-deserved, with Kiwi diplomats having played crucial roles on nuclear disarmament, banning landmines, dealing with small arms and, in 2008, hosting the crucial preparatory meeting in Wellington for the Dublin conference that negotiated the global ban on cluster bombs. Most recently, NZ was one of a handful of countries central to the agreement last June in Oslo of the Safe Schools Declaration aimed at protecting education from attack.

This last initiative provides an important and encouraging precedent for international efforts underway to address one of the most pressing contemporary humanitarian problems: the bombing and bombardment of towns and cities.

Is New Zealand Inching Towards A Tougher Position On The South China Sea?

5/8/2015

Author: David Capie

This week will see the twenty-second meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the annual talkfest where foreign ministers from across the Asia-Pacific region come together to discuss and debate security issues. Ruled by the ASEAN norms of consensus and non-interference in domestic affairs, in recent years these meetings have been criticized for their failure to address the region’s most pressing security concerns, including the situation in the South China Sea.

But in the lead up to the ARF in Kuala Lumpur, there is a sense that this year might be a bit different. Many ASEAN members – including the host Malaysia – are alarmed by China’s increasingly assertive actions in the South China Sea. Since September 2013, China has used advanced reclamation techniques to turn seven disputed features in the Spratlys into artificial islands. According to a report by the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies its aim is to “strengthen Beijing’s ability to enforce its territorial and jurisdictional claims within the so-called ‘nine-dash line’ that covers approximately 80 per cent of the South China Sea.”

Preventing Harm From the Bombing of Towns and Cities: What New Zealand Can Do

Is New Zealand Inching Towards A Tougher Position On The South China Sea?

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