NAPSNet 22 December 2011

• DETERRENCE: International humanitarian law and nuclear weapons 
• DPRK: Kim Jong Il’s death suggests continuity plus opportunity to engage
• CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Progress in natural hazard risk reduction: What hath development wrought?
• ENERGY SECURITY: Pan-Asian energy infrastructure: 2011
• GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Death of Kim forces South Koreans to confront class divide

DETERRENCE: International humanitarian law and nuclear weapons, Dean Granoff, Jonathan Granoff, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 67:6, pp. 53-62 (2011)

Nuclear weapons do not meet international criteria for discrimination between military and civilian targets, proportionality, and necessity. Nuclear weapon states should change missions, deployments, targeting policies and practices that facilitate the use of nuclear weapons (including threats to use).

• A new approach to nuclear disarmament, learning from international humanitarian law success, Patricia Lewis (19 November 2009)
• International humanitarian law and nuclear weapons, examining the humanitarian approach to nuclear disarmament, Nuclear Abolition Forum, London (2011)
• The Shimoda case: A legal appraisal of the atomic attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Richard Falk, The American Journal of International Law, 59:4, pp. 759-793 (October 1965)

DPRK: Kim Jong Il’s death suggests continuity plus opportunity to engage, Peter Hayes, Scott Bruce, and David von Hippel, The Nautilus Institute (18 December 2011)

Peter Hayes, Scott Bruce, and David von Hippel of the Nautilus Institute write that the political and military mobilization after the death of Kim Jong Il will be used to build legitimacy for Kim Jong-Un. This “may make Korea the land of the morning calm” while elections occur in the ROK, US, and elsewhere. In the interim, there is still an opportunity for engagement on food aid, development needs, and North Korea’s light water reactor program.

• Crisis of succession: Mapping the paths into and out of the personalist dictatorship in North Korea, Jin-Ha Kim, The East Asia Institute (24 November 2011)
• Kim Jong-Il’s absence and North Korean contingency: International cooperation and South Korea’s response, Koh Jae-hong, Ilmin Institute for International Relations (August 2010)
• China exerts influence nurtured over decades, Edward Wong, The New York Times (20 December 2011)

CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Progress in natural hazard risk reduction: What hath development wrought?, Stephen O. Bender, Environmental Hazards, vol. 10, pp. 69-79 (2011) [PDF, 329 KB]

Sovereign states, multilateral development banks and the international development community should collaborate in shifting paradigms to: consider all development actions as initiatives to reduce risk; separate emergency management policy and practice from disaster risk management; and fold disaster risk management and climate change adaptation into development planning and lending processes.

• Reflection and analysis surrounding the commitments and initiatives to support the implementation of the HFA from a regional perspective, Stephen Bender, ISDR and OAS Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas, USA (2009) [PDF, 198 KB]
• Primer on natural hazard management in integrated regional development planning, Department of Regional Development and Environment Executive Secretariat for Economic and Social Affairs Organization of American States, USA (1991)

ENERGY SECURITY: Pan-Asian energy infrastructure: 2011, Green Renaissance Through Advanced Technology (GRENATEC) (28 November 2011) [PDF, 1.07 MB]

GRENATEC, “a research organization examining the economics and technical challenges of deepening energy market integration in Asia”, presents a vision for an interconnected East Asia-Pacific, with gas, broadband, and electrical grids connecting nations from China south to Australia.  Key steps toward the vision are deepening cross-border grid interconnections and multilateral cooperation, introducing carbon pricing, and developing “cloud energy”.

• Russia’s energy security dilemmas in northeast Asia: Contending with the different faces of resource nationalism, Adam N. Stulberg, PONARS Eurasia (September 2011) [PDF, 203 KB]
• Japanese university develops superconducting technology to transmit solar power from desert areas, Japan for Sustainability (13 December 2011)
• South Korea passes law to establish smart grid network, PennEnergy (17 November 2011)

GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Death of Kim forces South Koreans to confront class divide; John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times (20 December 2011)

Kim Jong Il’s death has brought renewed attention to divisions between South Koreans and North Korean defectors within the ROK, as defectors are hopeful for the DPRK’s future after Kim’s death while South Koreans harbor fewer and fewer hopes for reunification. Despite divisions and recent tensions, however, the ROK government agreed to allow citizens to send individual condolence messages to the DPRK at the behest of various civil organizations.

• Government to allow S. Korean civilians to send condolences to NK; Korea Broadcasting Station (21 December 2011)
• North Korean defectors learn to adapt in South; Calum MacLeod, USA Today (21 December 2011)

Note: We regret that the Austral Security section is not included in this week’s NAPSNet report and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

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Editor

• Dyana Mardon

Contributors

• Deterrence: Peter Hayes
• Governance and Civil Society: Yi Kiho, Dyana Mardon
• Climate Change Adaptation: Saleem Janjua
• DPRK: Scott Bruce
• Energy Security: David von Hippel