Global Issues
A tragedy in Xinjiang, a tragedy for the UN
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s four-year term ended this week with the release at the eleventh hour of a long-delayed report assessing China’s…
Should democracies ever lie?
Should liberal democracies ever tell lies?
That’s one of the questions raised by reports that Facebook and Twitter have recently taken down a web of accounts, originating in…
Lowy Institute Papers
Rise of the Extreme Right: The new global extremism and the threat to democracy
Blue economy may be the key to South Asia's upswing
For decades, traditional and non-traditional threats in South Asia have found their footing in shifting geopolitical patterns. The Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the recent Sri…
ICC pushes probe on the Philippines’ drug war
In a June resolution, the International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan asked to resume an investigation into former president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, which was…
ASEAN governments need to act on Myanmar
On my first trip to Myanmar for Human Rights Watch in 2012, I met the activist and writer Kyaw Min Yu (known as Ko Jimmy), who had recently been released from prison. It was a…
Unpacking China’s Global Development Initiative
Overshadowed somewhat by the ongoing attention on China’s development efforts in the Pacific, last month China’s President Xi Jinping hosted a virtual High-Level Dialogue on…
What Vietnam can learn from Thailand’s fight against illegal fishing
Illegal fishing activities conducted by Vietnamese vessels have spiked during the first six months of 2022, with most boats caught encroaching into the waters of Indonesia,…
Support Pacific neighbours by strengthening indigenous food systems
Across the island states of the Pacific, indigenous food systems have been shaped and refined over centuries to make the most of bountiful natural resources without exhausting…
ASEAN and pandemic recovery: Economy before strategic rivalry
The sweeping consequences of Covid-19 have carried a devastating cost right across the world, but especially for less-developed countries that began the crisis at a disadvantage…