Ra Herr

CCAMLR and the Environmental Protocol: Relationships and Interactions

It is more than passing significance that this chapter addressing the role of the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources1 (CCAMLR) in the implementation of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty2 (Protocol) has been placed here in Part IV rather than in Part II of this book. Despite its own path-breaking origins in the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) in environmental protection, CCAMLR, together with the institutions established under it, has not been perceived generally by the members of the ATS as providing ‘institutional support for the implementation of the Protocol’. This is not to say that all elements of the ATS, or indeed even of CCAMLR, are in agreement that this is, or should be, the case. Since the initial negotiation and including the more latterly implementation of the Protocol, some contributors to CCAMLR processes have objected privately to the institutional compasttnentalisation of the ATS’s only formal inter-governmental organisation.

Australia, Security and the Pacific Islands: From Empire to Commonwealth

Abstract While Australia did not single-handedly scuttle the prospects of a more tightly knit Commonwealth arrangement in the Pacific Islands, its security ambitions have worked against the development of such ties. This article identifies three key turning points, beginning from 1944, where Australia opted for alliance arrangements that undermined closer Commonwealth ties with and among the Pacific Islands. As the regions hegemonic influence, Australias decisions have been a significant factor in shaping the contemporary Pacific Islands regional system. Canberras active commitment and backing would have been essential for closer Commonwealth connections to be developed in this varied and remote region. Yet Australias search for security in the Southwest Pacific has denied the Commonwealth the benefit of such unqualified support. Commonwealth ties are still a factor within the Pacific Islands region in such areas as contemporary political relationships, including the maintenance of Westminster traditions, but they are probably not what they might have been.

Nauru in the Arc of Instability: Too Many Degrees of Freedom?

ously in any credible “arc of instability”, even one whose span includes the remotest region on earth. Yet, for its own special reasons, Nauru deserves some mention in the arc of instability if only to demonstrate its idiosyncratic contribution to this image of a putative zone of unstable states to Australia’s north threatening the Commonwealth’s security. There are, perhaps, a variety of explanations for Nauru’s inclusion in this arc of instability. A principal one is a propensity in the popular media to conflate such terms as “failed state” and “rogue state” thus including Nauru with a wide range of states that have abused their sovereign obligations. A less visible factor is the human tendency to try to find symmetry at the expense of consistency when explaining diverse events under a single rubric. Thus, to use a phrase like “arc of instability” encourages the search for examples to make such an arc complete or continuous. Another rationale may be an expectation of what Nauru is to become as the island’s one significant natural resource – phosphate – runs out. At least until very recently, Nauru has probably been more “roguish” than “failed” but it would seem that Australia has not found Nauru’s willingness to sell its sovereignty necessarily all that threatening; at least when it agrees to process would-be refugees targeting Australia. This chapter presents an overview of Nauru’s inclusion in the arc of instability against a perspective of responsible state behavior. The logic of this approach is grounded largely in the ambiguity surrounding the linkages that make the arc of instability a coherent and useful concept. If there is one constancy that unites countries as disparate as Indonesia, the Solomons and Nauru in a concept such as the arc of instability, it lies in their inability or unwillingness to manage fully the demands of sovereignty. Whether the grounds for this failure to meet expectations of responsible state behavior stems from a lack of will or a lack of means may not be material for those adversely affected although it will affect the response. In the case of Nauru, the question of state responsibility goes back more than just to the origins of the minuscule republic since the same can be said of all the other states in this arc. It also goes to the special, almost unique, circumstances that appeared to give Nauru every advantage to be an effective state despite its small size (Figure 11.1). Linking Nauru’s own special circumstances in managing state responsibility with Australia’s perception of an arc of instability is the island’s long ties to Australia. The primary association was Nauru’s quasi-colonial subordination to Australia under the mandate/trusteeship systems. This United Nations’ moderated relationship enabled Nauru to hasten the pace of national self-determination at a time that was especially congenial in terms of international expectations of smaller polities. The minimal 11. NAURU IN THE ARC OF INSTABILITY: TOO MANY DEGREES OF FREEDOM? RICHARD HERR AND DONALD POTTER