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Palm oil is the cheapest, most produced, and most consumed vegetable oil worldwide. It is produced in the global South and, in many of these countries, has been framed as a 'golden crop' bringing development and prosperity to rural areas where the crop is cultivated. However, the expansion and intensification of palm oil have been linked to many environmental and social issues. Concern over these issues has largely stemmed from consumers in the global North, resulting in Northern-led policies (e.g. the EU's RED II), certification standards (RSPO), and other forms of governance to accelerate and guide the sustainability transition of the sector. This paper questions if the South should continue to be norm takers (or norm responders), and the North norm entrepreneurs of palm oil sustainability transitions. Indonesia is the world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil, while India is the world's largest importer and consumer. While many producers and governments in the South are motivated to adopt Northern mechanisms to maintain their market share, there remain high levels of resistance as the mechanisms are perceived to lack cognisance of uniquely Southern concerns about development and survival. This paper argues that leadership provided by Indonesia and India may be a more successful path forward for sustainability transitions in palm oil for the benefit of the global palm oil complex.

The driving factor of the Indo-Pacific region’s economic growth is energy. The region’s energy sector is primarily traditional energy-based and import-dependent even though a few countries have nuclear in their energy mix. The current Russia-Ukraine conflict also impacts the region’s sustainable and affordable energy goals in many dimensions. In the post-pandemic era, countries need to kickstart delayed economic growth and sustainable goals. That being said, it is difficult for countries to figure out how to maintain healthy cooperation in the region. Indo-Pacific countries are setting their own pace towards ambitious sustainable development goals. Therefore, countries could be classified as faster, slower, lagging behind, or advancing forward. To reduce the development gap, some countries are considering Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Floating Nuclear Power Plants (FNPP) as a solution. While others are concerned that nuclear expansion could be an added threat to the region’s existing security challenges. Nuclear energy is a double- edged sword. It can provoke challenges as well as benefits. Therefore, nuclear energy could be an area of cooperation in terms of sustainable innovation.

A sustainable and resilient blue economy in the Indo-Pacific will not only take care of geoeconomic interests and environmental concerns but also provide an accessible opportunity for littoral states in the region to collaborate in a multilateral setting. India has undertaken several blue economy initiatives like the Draft National Policy Framework on Blue Economy, Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, SAGAR doctrine, SAGARMALA Programme, and the Indian Ocean Rim Association, etc. All these initiatives belong to the larger umbrella of multilateral and minilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region for maritime connectivity and economic growth. Major components of such schemes are maritime security and a sustainable blue economy. However, many challenges remain like lack of blue-green infrastructure, climate change, rising geostrategic competition in the Indo-Pacific due to US-China rivalry and regional tensions amidst China, Japan, India, Australia and others, reduced maritime security due to piracy, and resource competition between great powers. India needs to channelise the growing blue economy initiatives⎯capitalizing on both existing ones as well as creating new fora to build regional and multilateral consensus on maritime cooperation, security and stability over the seas, freedom of navigation, and preservation of marine resources.

States have often focused on traditional security issues to preserve regional security. This paper highlights the main causes and consequences of climate change and global warming in the Bay of Bengal region and its littoral states. It also provides evidence of how climate change transcends state boundaries to give rise to insecurities. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, to redefine regional security for the states in this region, and second, to (re)define sustainability in the era of climate change. The study is qualitative, and secondary data has been collected from various sources. Due to climate change, vulnerable communities living in the littoral states will continue to suffer greatly if human security issues are not considered. What is needed today is a shift from economic development that ignores environmental issues and a regional security mechanism that discounts human experiences in favour of a governance structure that explores new sustainable development practices and improves the adaptive capabilities of vulnerable communities. The study concludes by providing policy recommendations particularly the need to develop a regional governance structure founded on normative principles of protecting lives and livelihoods of vulnerable individuals and the environment that sustains them.

Climate Change is one of the many accepted realities of the 21st century and the most dynamic and evolving one. The link between climate change and human mobility is complex as it is aligned with different social, environmental, economic, cultural and political factors. The adverse impacts of climate change—such as sea-level rise, floods, drought and storms—are displacing millions of people, hindering sustainable development. These displacements create multifaceted impacts on people and their livelihoods by changing their way of living, causing stress, uncertainty and, in the worst cases, loss of lives and property. There is insufficient global data to make a perfect assessment, but one of the estimations records it to be approximately 255 million people. In 2019 alone, 23.4 million people (IOM) from 140 countries were displaced, and the Pacific was one of the worst hit. As the Indo-Pacific region gains increasing importance, a greater number of nations will be engaged in the area, making the study of climate-induced migration increasingly important. SDG 13 speaks of Climate Action, and Climate Refugees are very much part of this discourse. The research would make a modest attempt to list climate-induced vulnerabilities in the Indo-Pacific with major hotspots. What are the coping mechanisms adopted by these states, what type of support is available with international agencies and how states in the Indo-Pacific region can utilize the available mechanisms to mitigate challenges emanating from climate-induced migration leading to sustainable development are some of the crucial questions the paper would attempt to answer.

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The trilateral alliance of America, Japan and South Korea has long been desired by Washington to become the backbone of the US alliance system in Asia due to similar interests and values, especially in the face of common threats. Originally fostered with the aim to counter North Korea and later institutionalized in 1999, the US-Japan-South Korea trilateral alliance has been successful in establishing a coordinated mechanism for cooperation. However, in 2017 when US President Trump pushed ahead with FOIP, the opposing response by Japan and South Korea exposed perception gaps in the trilateral grouping. Even as Japan welcomed this development, South Korea’s hesitation towards FOIP highlighted the dilemma of supporting US initiatives without being entangled in the US-China power struggle. Furthermore, FOIP’s Japanese origins have been associated with South Korea’s slow embrace of the new strategic concept. At the same time, waning Japan-South Korea relations due to debates over historical narratives have weakened the post-Cold War bonhomie developed by the neighbouring states. This paper assesses the American rational for attaching importance to the trilateral alliance and its position within the Indo-Pacific construct. Most importantly, the paper addresses the evolution of the triad amidst evolving regional geopolitics.

The Indo-Pacific is loosely articulated as a broad-based framing concept. It is a mega-region defined differently by each of its proponents based on national interest. As a geographic reality, the boundaries of the region have seen myriad interpretations, differing even among ‘like-minded’ Quad powers (India, Japan, Australia, US) and actors like the European Union (EU) and UK. China, meanwhile, has largely rejected the concept, even as democratic stakeholder states have promoted focused ventures, strategies and visions for the region to deter Beijing’s revisionist rise. Nonetheless, an area of convergence among all actors in the region has emerged in the form of their commitment to upholding ‘ASEAN Centrality’. Ranging from the Quad powers to China, a bow to ASEAN Centrality — and the organisation’s own Indo-Pacific definition — shows a nuanced strategy to build autonomy in dealing with the region while attempting to ensure a balance of power in an increasingly multipolar Asia. This paper will seek to focus on the importance ASEAN holds in the Indo-Pacific by analysing why its centrality is espoused by all stakeholders involved. This paper will argue how ASEAN holds immense promise to both shape the future of the region’s convergent response to shared threats, and potentially provide the basis for a common conceptualization of its geography.

The rapidly evolving power equations, and great power rivalry, in the Indo-Pacific create unique and demanding conditions for all stakeholders in the region. In this fluid context, regional and extra-regional actors are expressing competing visions of a regional security order. As an important regional power, India has shown interest in this process, in order to help shape the emerging Indo-Pacific security order. However, it faces multiple challenges in achieving these objectives. It is observably adjusting its internal and external policies to seek these objectives. One such major adjustment is India’s reorientation of its defence diplomacy (DD) towards a shared understanding of regional security norms. This article argues that India’s DD is primarily driven by the quest for shaping a new regional security order which can accommodate visions of both regional and extra-regional stakeholders. The paper examines the means employed in this process by focusing on India’s defence cooperation mechanisms, surveying debates and declarations pertaining to maritime security, to decipher the normative content and values behind India’s approach. The paper advances the argument that India’s Indo-Pacific engagement is gradually evolving to empower the capacities of the regional partners, institutionalising inter-operability, and assisting key actors for building cooperative regional security architecture, thereby stabilising the regional security environment.

Traditionally, New Delhi has cooperated with the East and South African countries bordering the Indian Ocean within the broader framework of South-South Cooperation. Now within the Indo-Pacific narrative and increasing Chinese profile in the region, India’s strategic engagement with the countries of the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) has increased. This has been reflected through commercial and development interactions and maritime security cooperation. The India-Africa summit meetings and Prime Minister Modi’s Africa policy has further sharpened these engagements.  The paper looks at India’s bilateral and multilateral engagements and explores scope for a minilaterals involving India, a few of its major strategic partners and some key countries from the region. The paper argues that existing triangular development cooperation interactions in the WIO could be extended to trade and commerce, infrastructure connectivity and maritime cooperation in the form of possible minilaterals.

The transformation of the Asian geostrategic landscape, with the rise of India and China, has led to the emergence of the “Indo-Pacific” as a focal point of geostrategic discourse. Consequently, as the Indo-Pacific has replaced the Asia-Pacific as a strategic region in the mind-map of policymakers, it has become prudent to conceptualise the region as a strategic system and outline its key attributes. This paper explores contemporary understanding of the Indo-Pacific as a strategic system and examines its multipolar configuration. It also highlights the major attributes of this emergent strategic system – the common threat of Chinese revisionism, a regional impulse for the Indo-Pacific, its continental dimensions, and the relative legitimacy of the US’ liberal hegemony in the region – to explain the dynamics of emerging regional security architecture in Asia.