Criminal Threats Undermining Indo-Pacific Maritime Security: Can International Law Build Resilience?

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-220
Author(s):  
Jade Lindley

Maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region is strategically important to not only the surrounding states, but also those with an interest in its good governance, to support safe passage and natural resources extraction. Criminal threats, such as maritime piracy and illegal fishing, enabled by corruption and the potential for terrorism, undermine regional maritime security and therefore, there is incentive for states to respond cooperatively to secure the region. Drawing on broken windows crime theory, implicitly supporting the continuation of criminal threats within the region may enables exiting crimes to proliferate. With varying legal and political frameworks and interests across the Indo-Pacific region, achieving cooperation and harmonisation in response to regional maritime-based criminal threats can be challenging. As such, to respond to criminal threats that undermine maritime security, this article argues that from a criminological perspective, aligning states through existing international law enables cooperative regional responses. Indeed, given the prevalence of corruption within the region enabling serious criminal threats, harmonising through existing counter-corruption architecture may be a suitable platform to build from.

Author(s):  
Yuskar Yuskar

Good governance is a ware to create an efficient, effective and accountable government by keeping a balanced interaction well between government, private sector and society role. The implementation of a good governance is aimed to recover the public trust for the government that has been lost for the last several years because of financial, economic and trust crisis further multidimensional crisis. The Misunderstanding concept and unconcerned manner of government in implementing a good governance lately have caused unstability, deviation and injustice for Indonesia society. This paper is a literature study explaining a concept, principles and characteristics of a good governance. Furthermore, it explains the definition, development and utility of an efficient, effective and accountable government in creating a good governance mechanism having a strong impact to the democratic economy and social welfare. It also analyzes the importance of government concern for improving democratic economy suitable with human and natural resources and the culture values of Indonesia.


Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert

The issue of sovereignty over natural resources has been a key element in the development of international law, notably leading to the emergence of the principle of States’ permanent sovereignty over their natural resources. However, concomitant to this focus on States’ sovereignty, international human rights law proclaims the right of peoples to self-determination over their natural resources. This has led to a complex and ambivalent relationship between the principle of States’ sovereignty over natural resources and peoples’ rights to natural resources. This chapter analyses this conflicting relationship and examines the emergence of the right of peoples to freely dispose of their natural resources and evaluates its potential role in contemporary advocacy. It notably explores how indigenous peoples have called for the revival of their right to sovereignty over natural resources, and how the global peasants’ movement has pushed for the recognition of the concept of food sovereignty.


Author(s):  
Mahesh K. Joshi ◽  
J.R. Klein

The twenty-first century is being touted as the Asian century. With its stable economy, good governance, education system, and above all the abundant natural resources, will Australia to take its place in the global economy by becoming more entrepreneurial and accelerating its rate of growth, or will it get infected with the so-called Dutch disease? It has been successful in managing trade ties with fast-developing economies like China and India as well as developed countries like the United States. It has participated in the growth of China by providing iron ore and coal. Because it is a low-risk country, it has enabled inflow of large foreign capital investments. A lot will depend on its capability and willingness to invest the capital available in entrepreneurial ventures, its ability to capture the full value chain of natural resources, and to export the finished products instead of raw materials, while building a robust manufacturing sector.


Author(s):  
Anna Stilz

This book offers a qualified defense of a territorial states system. It argues that three core values—occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination—are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all of the sovereignty rights states currently claim and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states’ sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people’s preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and facilitates its people’s collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.


Author(s):  
Daan P. van Uhm ◽  
Ana G. Grigore

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between the Emberá–Wounaan and Akha Indigenous people and organized crime groups vying for control over natural resources in the Darién Gap of East Panama and West Colombia and the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand meet), respectively. From a southern green criminological perspective, we consider how organized crime groups trading in natural resources value Indigenous knowledge. We also examine the continued victimization of Indigenous people in relation to environmental harm and the tension between Indigenous peoples’ ecocentric values and the economic incentives presented to them for exploiting nature. By looking at the history of the coloniality and the socioeconomic context of these Indigenous communities, this article generates a discussion about the social framing of the Indigenous people as both victims and offenders in the illegal trade in natural resources, particularly considering the types of relationships established with dominant criminal groups present in their ancestral lands.


Author(s):  
Durga D Poudel

Sustainable conservation, development, and utilization of natural and human resources is necessary for accelerated economic growth and fast-paced socio-economic transformation of Nepal. Asta-Ja Framework, which is a theoretically grounded grassroots based peaceful and self-reliant planning and development approach, offers practical strategies for sustainable conservation and development of natural and human resources enhancing food, water, climate, and environmental security, accelerated economic growth, and socio-economic transformation of Nepal. Asta-Ja includes interconnected eight resources in Nepali letter, Ja, – Jal (water), Jamin (land), Jungle (forest), Jadibuti (medicinal and aromatic plants), Janashakti (manpower), Janawar (animal), Jarajuri (crop plants) and Jalabayu (climate). Asta-Ja Framework is a unifying framework for planning and resources development and has a strong footing on science, business, and eastern philosophy. While providing practical guidelines for achieving food, water, climate and environmental security, this article presents Nepal Vision 2040, which is developed considering challenges that Nepal is currently facing and its available Asta-Ja resources, envisioning that Nepal’s economic development reaching at the par of developed nations by 2040. Key strategic sectors identified in Nepal Vision 2040 include smallholder mixed-farming system, agro-jadibuti industrialization, protection of drinking water sources, climate change adaptation, environmental pollution control, conservation of natural resources, infrastructure, tourism, renewable energy, alleviation of inequalities, and good governance. This article demonstrates strategies for addressing social discrimination and inequalities through the process of Asta-Ja community capacity-building and self-reliant development. Ecological balance of Asta-Ja resources is necessary for sustainable natural resources, economic development, and community resiliency. The Government of Nepal is suggested to adopt Asta-Ja Framework as its national planning and development framework for sustainable economic growth and fast-paced socio-economic transformation of the country.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Herdegen

In the process of globalisation, international law plays a crucial and ambivalent role. It is one of the driving forces behind the integration of markets, expanding standards of human rights and good governance as well as mechanisms for international peace and security. International law also responds to a globalised world which catalyses not only universal ethics, but also the global spread of risks to political and economic stability. "Evolutive interpretation" of international agreements affects traditional concepts of sovereignty and democratic legitimacy. It enhances the power of technocratic elites. At the same time, we witness an intensive interplay between the different sectors of international law; new layers of 'hard' and 'soft' normativity as well as intriguing forms of legal pluralism.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document