Policy Briefs

The ‘perfect storm’ is brewing as Vanuatu’s population grows and its exposure to climate risks escalates as the planet continues to warm. It is widely accepted that the consequences of climate change are disproportionately burdening vulnerable, developing states, such as those across the South Pacific region.

This policy brief will examine the various factors that enable online hate speech to resonate, spread, and drive offline action. After briefly reviewing the features of social media that enable hate speech to spread online, we will explore tools for designing interventions to respond to this content. As part of this, we will consider the broader online and offline context impacting this speech, and review approaches to identifying, understanding, and engaging online audiences. Drawing from multidisciplinary research insights, the discussion will then address considerations for developing messaging strategies and content. The review concludes with a brief discussion of the importance of assessing and mitigating risk. Overall, this brief will position readers to be able to develop their own strategies for responding to online hate and dangerous speech in their context.

In Pacific Island Countries, the planned relocation of island communities affected by climate change is increasingly being discussed as an adaptation measure of last resort. While some planning is proceeding, there is as yet little actual resettlement activity. However, this is set to change in the not-too-distant future. This Policy Brief presents one prominent case of resettlement – relocation from the Carterets atoll, part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, to the main island of Bougainville.

After missile launches and threats of ‘fire and fury’ in 2017, international relations on the Korean peninsula have improved in 2018. The inter-Korean peace process pursued by President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong-un and the summit meetings of 2018 suggest there may be an opportunity for consolidating this improvement. This raises three central questions. How can the Korean peninsula be denuclearised? What are the prospects of a formal declaration of the end of the Korean war? How can the armistice be turned into a permanent peace agreement?

The efforts of the international community to prevent, freeze or stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme experienced many ups and downs since 1985 when the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) joined the NPT.1 Phases of promising agreements with plans for reintegrating a weapon-free North Korea into the international community were superseded by periods of heightened tensions with bellicose policies of the North Korean government and retaliatory hostile responses and maximum pressure by the US government.