NON-INTERVENTION AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE ASIA--PACIFIC.

• Author: AYSON, ROBERT
• Position: Review

NON-INTERVENTION AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE ASIA--PACIFIC Editors: David Dickens and Guy Wilson-Roberts Published by: Centre for Strategic Studies, Wellington, 2000, 112pp, $20.

The debate over whether members of the international community should intervene in the affairs of other sovereign states when widespread abuses of human rights are taking place has been enjoying a high profile in recent international relations thinking. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's emphasis on the sovereignty and security of the individual, for example, represents a marked challenge to those states (and thinkers) who steadfastly promote the primacy of state sovereignty under the Westphalian system. In this context, the publication of these edited papers on intervention and sovereignty from a range of Asia--Pacific perspectives is very timely. Many states within the region hold to the traditional view and the very basis of regional institutions such as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes explicit acknowledgement of the need to avoid interference in the domestic affairs of individual member countries. Indeed if there is any part of the world where new norms of humanitarian intervention are likely to come unstuck, it is in Pacific Asia.

The papers in this short volume are the product of the December 1999 meeting of the Comprehensive and Co-operative Security Workshop held in Seoul under the auspices of the Council for Security Co-operation in the Asia-Pacific. The Council is a network of regional think-tanks, scholars and officials designed to support higher-level official dialogue on regional security (such as the ASEAN Regional Forum) through the promotion of what is called Track Two dialogue. It is only fitting that these papers have been edited and published by New Zealand's Centre for Strategic Studies, which has played a substantial role in the ongoing work of this particular CSCAP Working Group.

The reader will find two main types of papers sandwiched between the editors' introduction and a summary of the discussion held at the meeting. There are two general and comprehensive treatments of the principle of intervention provided by John Funston and Herman Kraft respectively. The remainder of the book consists of nine essays, some of them all too brief. These offer perspectives on intervention from individual countries, ranging from East Asia (Singapore, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines) to New...