Multilateral security governance in Northeast Asia/North Pacific

Co-Chairs

CSCAP Japan, CSCAP Korea and CSCAP-China.

Considerations

This Study Group proposes to address multilateral security governance in Northeast Asia/North Pacific. It will argue that mutually coordinated institutional linkages, whether bilateral, multilateral, regional or global would generate a synergistic effect on regional stability and is critical for developing a security multilateralism, rather than establishing a single multilateral institution.

A serious concern for Northeast Asian regional security order is not the lack of multilateral security institutions, but the lack of coordination and linkage between existing institutions. There already exist many useful institutions covering Northeast Asia -bilateral, sub-regional, regional and global - that could contribute to regional peace and stability if they were interlinked and integrated in an appropriate way. The Six Party Talks provide an excellent laboratory to discuss the possibility of creating a multilateral security framework in the region. The success of the Six Party Talks depends to a large extent on whether various institutions can successfully be linked and coordinated with each other, and then amalgamated into de facto multilateralism. 

Specific agenda

The specific agenda of this Study Group will be to address:

Outcomes

The outcome of the Study Group will be a short mid-term report and the possibility of publishing a book at the end of the project.

Meetings

The first meeting of this Study Group was held in February 2009 in Tokyo, Japan.

Read the study group's brief research proposal submitted to the Steering Committee at the meeting on 22 January 2009.