The University of Queensland’s Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (ACPACS) has appointed Professor Kevin Clements as its inaugural director.
Professor Clements said he hoped to make the Centre a “one stop shop” for anyone wanting to know about peace and conflict issues in the Asia Pacific region.
“This won’t only be an academic research centre ,” he said.
“Rather it will be a centre of research and practice excellence that will contribute to and shape debates in this field both in Australia and the rest of the world.
“I would also like the Centre to become a neutral, safe space for high-level dialogues and problem-solving workshops for conflicting parties from the Asia Pacific region.
“The UQ’s location in Brisbane is a very nice bridge between Canberra, Melanesia and South East Asia.”
Professor Clements joins UQ after a five-year stint as Secretary General of International Alert, one of the world’s largest non-government organisations working towards ending conflicts around the world.
Professor Clements was also a professor at the US-based Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in Virginia, director of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra.
He said issues of peace and conflict were high in people’s minds since the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US but the Bush Administration’s so-called “war on terror” however, had created its own set of problems.
“One of the more shocking realities since the ‘war on terror’ began is that al’Qaeda and related organisations have proved to be more lethal since September 11,” he said.
“And there has been an upsurge of terrorist activity in Afghanistan, Iraq and in other parts of the world,” he said.
“Terrorist threats need to be addressed at their source. In addition to responding to the symptoms of terror, we have to identify and analyse their origins. In particular it is important that powerful countries like the United States and Australia develop processes that are inclusive rather than exclusive and work to ensure that people who feel marginalised, humiliated and excluded have their needs and interests acknowledged and met.
“Unless we deal with some of these fundamental problems there will be structural instability, uncertainty and fear.”
Professor Clements also said there should be widespread commitment to enhancing regional capacities for the early warning of and early response to violent conflict.
He predicted the 21st Century would see the formation of powerful and effective regional institutions around the world, with a corresponding decrease in the centrality of the nation state.
“I think the Iraqi war is the last gasp of 20th Century imperialism,” he said.
“Even the neo-conservatives can now see some of the limitations of military power, coercive diplomacy and pre-emptive strike doctrines.
“We have to promote regional institutions like ASEAN and global institutions like the United Nations if we are to develop effective legal and political frameworks to ensure the international rule of law, order and structural stability.
“Multilateralism is not an optional extra in the 21st Century, but a central imperative.“
Media: For more information contact Professor Kevin Clements (telephone 07 3365 3043 or email k.clements@uq.edu.au) or Andrew Dunne at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2802 or email a.dunne@uq.edu.au).
