During a 20-year civil war, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has served as a bastion of international support, democratic values, and humanitarian assistance. Highlighting democratization, security, economic assistance, and human rights, we employed over 20 years of United Nations (UN) archives to examine the effectiveness of its mission mandates, and found that UNAMA had reduced child labor and judicial corruption while increasing civil society and facilitating international humanitarian aid. However, UNAMA failed to improve security or establish an inclusive government, particularly with respect to human rights violations. After the US military withdrawal in 2021, the future of UNAMA is contingent upon political negotiations with the Taliban. Only time will tell whether contributions of the mission will persist into the post-conflict era.

Peace studies in China has had meaningful initial developments, but the sustainability of the field’s development has been constrained by an authoritarian political atmosphere. Rights and justice are core issues in peace studies, but these remain unaddressed in China. Thus, this article highlights studies on rights movements as de facto peace studies in an authoritarian setting and compares the movement among the middle class and that of peasants/workers, which can help us understand current contradictions and disharmony in Chinese society. Maintaining the stability of a turbulent society is becoming a crucial agenda for the Chinese state. Accordingly, studies on rights movements will become increasingly important.

Member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) support the norms of nuclear disarmament and nuclear security through diplomatic efforts at the global level and regional efforts to promote nuclear safety and security. This is demonstrated in how ASEAN helped push for negotiation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and its eventual passage, as well as ongoing efforts to promote regional cooperation in advancing nuclear security and nuclear safety. Regional frameworks and mechanisms like the ASEAN Network of Regulatory Bodies on Atomic Energy (ASEANTOM), the ASEAN Regional Forum, and the East Asia Summit provide the platforms for ASEAN to advance its diplomacy in promoting the norms of nuclear governance.

The geographical environment is believed to be one of the most important elements influencing the expansion of human civilizations along watercourses. The contiguity of Gwadar Port to the dominant trading routes and energy chokepoints of the world contributes to its prominence in the regional framework. Gwadar will turn Pakistan into a regional corridor due to its geographic location in relation to the enormous supply and consumer market economies of different regions. This study is explanatory and qualitative, and it emphasizes the geostrategic imperatives driving the development of Gwadar Port, including those connected with Pakistan’s economy and its position in the region, military strategy, and the development of Baluchistan Province, and concludes that the opening of the port has substantially enhanced the economy and security of Pakistan.

The people of Muslim Mindanao in the southern Philippines overwhelmingly approved, in a plebiscite in 2019, the creation of a new and more autonomous region, raising hopes that the decades-long conflict in Mindanao would soon end. This article asserts that the Mindanao peace process is not just about peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but it should also include the effective participation of grassroots organizations and community-based peace advocates in resolving local conflicts. It evaluates four significant contributions of grassroots-level, local organizations and NGOs to the peace process: (1) combating violent extremism, (2) broadening peacebuilding by local women’s organizations, (3) solving local conflicts and rido (clan wars), and (4) ceasefire monitoring and civilian protection.

The Greentree Agreement of 2006 between Cameroon and Nigeria ended the conflict over the ownership of the oil and fish rich Bakassi Peninsula in favor of Cameroon and created problems for the relocated and resettled Nigerians. This article argues that contrary to the generally accepted theory by many scholars that heritage values are often the concern of displaced persons, we found that practical economic needs and the desire for functional participation in governance of those relocated in New Bakassi have been the main problems of the displacees leading to an indigenousincomer divide that could generate a crisis that may degenerate into intractable conflict. The study reveals that due to government insensitivity and corruption, proper resettlement for Bakassi returnees is yet to be addressed.

The effectiveness of the nuclear non-proliferation regime is no longer as sturdy as it once was and new infusions of creativity are greatly needed. Concentrating on positive incentives may better promote non-proliferation. Incentives targeting industry have a higher chance of success due to their vast influence in multiple governments. The IAEA’s ElBaradei Report is one conceptualizatoin of an intergovernmental nuclear fuel supply bank. As a multilateral approach, nuclear fuel banks promote more opportunities for diplomacy amongst states. While it is only one approach to overcoming the current crisis of the non-proliferation regime, it has the potential to make a huge difference in how the world handles nuclear power on a supranational basis.

Various factors affect the ability of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to achieve socioeconomic stability. Aid and repatriation attempts have a short-term impact, whereas opportunities like access to education and healthcare have a long-term impact. Thus, a measurement of inequality of opportunity is needed in order to formulate an appropriate development policy that can achieve socioeconomic stability. The objective of this study is, therefore, to measure inequality of opportunity affecting a community in India that has been displaced for a period of less than twenty years by ethnic conflict. A field survey revealed that IDPs were more deprived than non-IDPs. Inequality of opportunity has been measured using a D-Index, and determinants of the inequality of opportunity have been identified.

In 2012, two well-established international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in the peacebuilding field, Conciliation Resources and Saferworld, published a joint report entitled “From Conflict Analysis to Peacebuilding Impact” (Hiscock and Dumasy 2012). This report was based on 18 conflict studies across a broad range of contexts, all focused on building the capacities of local actors to engage in participatory forms of conflict analysis as well as utilizing the insights gained for strategizing peacebuilding initiatives. The report’s main conclusion was that adequate conflict analysis is a key precondition for all types of effective peacebuilding initiatives. Two other notable conclusions were that the process and the ownership of the conflict analysis are as important as the results of the analysis.

Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in recent years for reasons related to conflicting territorial claims and rivalry, competition for access to fish stocks as well as oil and gas fields, and in China’s case, emerging strategic interests. Because international law largely excludes it from an area it regards as historically Chinese, China has recently become more assertive in pushing its claim, resorting to power projection, particularly against smaller claimants, such as Vietnam and the Philippines. China’s actions have drawn in external powers, including the United States, Japan, and India, a development that exacerbates the problem. The danger is not that the United States and China may come into a direct conflict, but that through error or miscalculation a clash may escalate into a conflict involving external powers. Proposals to prevent conflict and stabilize the area include an agreement to avoid incidents at sea. Also a UN-sponsored conference on the South China Sea could contribute to a long-term resolution of the issue by dealing with competing claims in a semi-enclosed sea and other outstanding issues.