The Limits of Influence: Australia and the Future of New Caledonia, 1975 to 1988

From the late 1970s Australian governments (led in turn by Malcolm Fraser and Bob Hawke) expected New Caledonia to become independent. France responded with suspicion. From 1983, however, reformist governments in Australia and France took apparently converging views. But tensions rose because of unrest in New Caledonia and conflict over French nuclear testing. Australia’s limited capacity to influence developments waned further in 1986 when Jacques Chirac became French prime minister and countered the Kanak nationalist movement. Foreign Minister Bill Hayden favoured moderating Australia’s position, but the issue became moot in mid-1988 when the rival forces in New Caledonia agreed to the truce embodied in the Matignon Accords. The different approaches of the Fraser and Hawke governments reflected philosophical differences, the personal stance of key players, influences from their political movements, and the challenges of changing circumstances. Decades later, with a referendum due by November 2018, Australia’s approach is likely to be cautious.     

North Korea’s participation in the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights

North Korea’s participation in the UNHRC’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR)—a peer review in which states make recommendations to one another for improving human rights implementation—is a notable exception to its rejection of other human rights mechanisms. What explains North Korea’s willing participation in the UPR? This essay analyses North Korea’s participation in the first (2008–11) and second (2012–15) UPR cycles through its written submissions, responses to recommendations, and recommendations to other states. It finds that North Korea has consistently accepted weak recommendations, rejected more specific policy changes, and implemented accepted recommendations on a limited basis, allowing it to claim compliance with human rights at minimal cost. The UPR’s reliance on states’ self-reports and its inability to adjudicate competing factual claims allow North Korea to reject claims of egregious abuses, openly advocate for a radically state-centric vision of human rights, and challenge the legitimacy of human rights mechanisms like the Commission of Inquiry and Special Rapporteur while building support from other states with similar views. Notably, the Commission of Inquiry appears to have motivated North Korea to increase its cooperation with the UPR, demonstrating that the UPR complements but cannot replace other UN human rights mechanisms.     

Experimental territoriality: Assembling the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea

This paper examines the interactions of sovereignty and political economy that shape North Korea's Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC)—an economic zone jointly operated by North and South Korea. Drawing on contemporary literatures concerning sovereignty, territoriality, and sites of political economic experimentation in East Asia, we argue that the KIC represents an experimental form of territoriality: one that is particularly volatile due to its unique geopolitical location where interaction among the various actors that compose it periodically shuts down or threatens to suspend the project. This volatility cannot be reduced to the structure of the North Korean regime alone, however. Rather, it must be situated within the continuation of a framework of enmity on the Korean peninsula as well as the ethical and political conundrums raised by the largely capitalist nature of the KIC as a form of inter-Korean economic cooperation.     

Paleoclimates and the emergence of fortifications in the tropical Pacific islands

Paleoclimatic data from the tropical Pacific islands are compared to archaeological evidence for fortification construction in the Holocene. The results suggest that in some regions, people constructed more fortifications during periods that match the chronology for the Little Ice Age (AD 1450–1850) in the Northern Hemisphere. Periods of storminess and drought associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation have less temporal correlation with the emergence of fortifications in the Pacific, but significant spatial correlation with the most severe conditions associated with this cycle. These temporal and spatial correlations require additional study to investigate possible causal relationships.     

Coastal societies, exchange and identity along the Channel and southern North Sea shores of Europe, AD 600–1000

This paper explores the functioning of coastal societies against the background of the changing role of coastal ‘contact zones’ on both sides of the Channel and southern North Sea region, between AD 600 and 1100. In so doing, it reassesses aspects of the generalising frameworks of interpretation applied over the past quarter of a century in favour of a more contextual approach, enabled by long known (although sometimes forgotten) and recent archaeological discoveries, together with new geological research. Regional and local complexity is a recurrent feature. A revolutionary increase in our awareness of the extent to which marginal coastal landscapes were occupied and exploited is matched by a commensurate increase in our knowledge of the number and complexity of settlements and seasonally used sites, involved in maritime exchange networks. Ultimately, this contribution confronts the dynamism of regional coastal societies with the wider socio-political structures in which they were incorporated.

《后魏孝文帝与高句丽王云诏》中所见魏、丽形势及双方关系

北魏孝文帝给高句丽王高云的诏书是一份非常重要的文献,诏书于太和十六年九、十月份发出,要求高句丽派遣王弟入朝,高句丽最终顺从了北魏的要求。诏书内容可以弥补多件文献阙载的历史事件,可以藉此了解孝文帝精心策划迁都洛阳过程中对内树立权威、对外极力笼络的手段,对研究高句丽国情、魏丽关系大有裨益。     

从欧洲共同体看亚太地区经济合作的发展趋势

本文以欧洲共同体的形成、发展为背景,对亚太地区经济合作的条件和前景进行初步探讨,并对中国在地区合作中的地位和作用进行初步分析。     

Two cases of facial involvement in probable treponemal infection from late prehistoric coastal North Carolina

This paper describes two late prehistoric burials from coastal North Carolina with cranial and postcranial lesions characteristic of treponemal infection. Each case exhibits facial lesions consistent with clinical reports of treponemal infection, but which have not previously been documented in these populations. The suite of facial lesions in one case and a mandibular lesion in the other serve to illustrate the variability inherent in treponemal infections. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The View from the Verandah: Levuka Bungalows and the Transformation of Settler Identities in Later Colonialism

The residential architecture of Levuka, Fiji, contains a diverse and well-preserved sample of what architectural historians have called the British tropical bungalow. Dating to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, these small frame structures bear witness to the in situ development of a descendant colonialist identity amongst the European settlers of the port town. Analysis of the degree to which these houses conform to, and diverge from, the normative traits of the global bungalow style provides insight into the material processes of later colonialist communities and their increasingly complex cultural and social identities.