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Media Release

September 16 2003

Justice underpins the path to peace in a lopsided world

Annual Hawke Lecture - Gareth Evans explores war and peace

While news bulletins and headlines scream that we are living in scary times, President of the International Crisis Group and former Foreign Minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments, Gareth Evans, says this is a time when we need to unpack the real from the imagined and address the deeper international problems that will help to build peace.

Guest speaker at this year’s annual Hawke Lecture on September 18 at the Adelaide Town Hall, Evans will explore the international political, economic and social tensions that have led to a global environment that appears highly charged with conflict.

But according to Evans there are emerging statistics that show some reduction in global conflicts, terrorist incidents, and the number of casualties from war and terror. So why is the sense of instability so strong?

“There are three key factors generating widespread alarm – the growth of international terrorist networks and their capacity and willingness to attack Western soft targets, the fragility of the treaty regimes dedicated to achieving non proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the destabilised governments across the globe with high potential for conflict,” Evans says.

“But in dealing with these problems we need to address some deeper issues - the undermining of systems of law or internationally agreed rules, a diminishing confidence in key institutions established to shape international rules and codes of conduct, and the lack of consensus about the strategies needed to deal with terrorism, WMD proliferation and an epidemic of collapsed and warring states.”

Evans argues strongly for international consensus on a set of ground rules governing the use of force in response to all forms of threat – from internal or external conflicts and from terrorism to invasion by traditional armies armed with nuclear missiles or machetes.

“The alternative to making a serious efforts to enforce and upgrade the international rules we have is to abandon the field to those who are more comfortable with the ad hoc exercise of power – who don’t really want to be limited by rules and principles, who feel constrained by international process and who see multilateral cooperation in very narrow self interested terms,” Evans says. “That is a kind of world most of us don’t want to live in.”

Speaking about the global context of current conflicts, Evans says we are living in a time of the most lopsided global power balance the world has ever known.

With an annual defence expenditure this year of almost $400 billion, more than 40 per cent of global defence expenditure, Evans says the US is bound to attract followers and enemies.

“The US is quite simply the biggest dog that ever turned up on the global block and its behaviour – actual perceived, anticipated, feared or imagined – is the catalyst for a great many reactions by other countries both rational and some irrational, that bear upon global, regional and national security,” he says.

“But after playing an important leadership role a decade ago in securing tough international inspection regimes for chemical weapons the US has more recently scuttled draft protocols for similar enforcements for biological weapons and asserted their rights to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. In ordinary life the adage ‘do as I say and not as I do’ cuts no ice with anyone and the same applies in the international community.”

Evans says while Australia’s relationship with the US is valuable, it should not be a “prism through which we view our relationship with everyone else.”

“We have interests of our own and should have views of our own on all the international issues from rules about force and institutional reform, to the right approach to dealing with terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and indeed peace building.

“On the big issues of war and peace Australia is never going to be a dominant global player but we can be a significant player and a lot more significant that we are now. The critical thing is to stay focussed, stay engaged, and look for the opportunities to make a difference, not just to give applause or be a helpless bystander.”

Director of the Hawke Centre, Elizabeth Ho said that this lecture confirms the role of the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre, established by UniSA in 1997, in encouraging active debate about topics that have a real impact on ordinary Australians and on the sustainability of our society.

“There is not one Australian who has not been affected either directly or indirectly by the instabilities of recent times and in this lecture we get a real picture about the absolute importance of international cooperation and the part we can play in achieving it,” she said.

The lecture is fully booked with 1100 attending. Gareth Evan’s 2003 Annual Hawke Lecture will be available in full online at www.hawkecentre.unisa.edu.au shortly after the lecture.

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