Policy Briefs

On 16 September, at the end of a virtual summit by leaders of the three countries, Australia, the UK and the US announced the conclusion of the AUKUS security agreement that commits the UK and US to unprecedented technology transfer and material assistance to help Australia acquire a fleet of eight nuclear-propelled submarines. This Policy Brief unpacks the longer term national, bilateral, regional and global reverberations and ramifications of the shock announcement of the birth of AUKUS.

Strategies to advance democracy in the US are fragmented with white peacebuilders mainly focusing on using dialogue to reduce political polarisation, and black and brown social justice activists mainly emphasizing the need for shifting power to ensure democratic representation and basic rights already enjoyed by most white people. This article begins with a race- and gender- sensitive analysis of the history of US polarisation and changemaking methods. It interrogates the ideas of “civility” and “impartiality” within the US context. This article asserts that the Movement for Black Lives should be understood as a peacebuilding strategy, and that bridgebuilding dialogue is relevant for building coalitions and support for racial justice. A model visualising four types of bridgebuilding dialogue offers a strategic peacebuilding vision for the US.

A tapestry of rules and norms form an uncharacteristic branch of international law which could be called global commons law, comprised of principles and norms forged by a vast mosaic of actors in shared stewardship and with a commonality of interests. Global commons law helps to sustain the absence of conflict and promotes cooperation, and partly explains the prevalence of endeavours towards cooperation. This branch of international law is unique as it does not ascribe rights and duties to states but to individuals and humanity. The state is not only a user and beneficiary, but it is also a guardian, and therefore has duties and responsibilities to ensure the preservation of these domains in which legal (sovereign) ownership is absent but which are characterised by peace instead of military confrontation.

In several summit meetings in June, the US administration tried to convince European allies and other G7 members to rally for a containment strategy against China. While the three summits of the G7, NATO and US-EU demonstrated harmony, there remain reservations in Europe about subscribing to the confrontational course against China. This paper will look at the reactions in Europe and assess how successful the new US administration was in convincing the G7, NATO and the EU to join hands in countering China. While the US government is pushing hard for a joint effort, European leaders are balancing the different economic, technological, political and security interests.

Ideologies play a fundamental role in the emergence, escalation and resolution of conflict by underpinning divergent narratives and worldviews. These ideologies develop and are reinforced over the course of a lifetime. Practitioners need the proper tools to adequately visualise these complex ideologies in individuals and/or groups and work with them as part of a larger peacebuilding process. This policy brief presents a technique for visualising ideologies using a new software tool called Valence that enables technology-assisted Cognitive Affective Mapping(CAM). It then offers lessons from a recent online conflict resolution exercise in which multiple stakeholders used this tool in an ongoing water conflict in Canada via a series of facilitated Zoom sessions held in 2020.