The legal process begun by the Philippines to challenge claims by China to the South China Sea surprised the region. International arbitration is allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but the move adds urgency and new elements to...
Everyone’s pivoting to Asia, even Asians. After the Barack Obama administration’s rebalancing and Australia’s white-paper pledge to give more emphasis to the region, here comes Japan. The recent visit to Southeast Asia by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe underscores this. Rather than heading to Washington, his...
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) continues its move towards greater institutionalization of the organization’s rules and procedures. An ASEAN Charter was signed on its 40th anniversary (on 20 November 2007) to make it a more rules-based organization. An ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human...
The optimistic view - if you can call it that - is that crisis will be avoided in 2013. The euro zone remains unsolved and messy, and American politicians have contrived their own financial cliff. But the Europeans have now so repeatedly avoided disaster that this...
Call it a case for evolution instead of revolution. While the Arab world continues in the throes of violence and uncertainty, Myanmar is undergoing incremental change -- and almost everyone seems to want it that way. The government is lightening up: holding elections, freeing political prisoners,...