The practice of harm in modern warfare

This three-year doctoral study beginning in 2011 examines how domestic and international conceptualisations of the ‘harm principle’ affect decisions regarding what types of weapons states deploy when engaged in international conflict. Put simply, in addition to military-strategic imperatives, the manner in which weapons kill and injure matters. Extending the constructivist finding that arms control, humanitarian and disarmament norms both constrain and constitute national security interests, as well as the English School notion of an international society of states, I posit that the positive responsibilities and negative duties inherent in the practice of harm demand that weapons norm dynamics are sociologically determined both within and between states. The Middle East, having staged more than half of the world’s conflicts since 1945, as well as involving both intra- and extra-regional belligerents with differing political, cultural and religious identities, is examined as the primary site of investigation between the period 1945 to 2010.

[Investigator: N.A.J. Taylor (University of Queensland). Total funding: $82,500. Funded by: Australian Federal Government and the University of Queensland]

Prospects for a WMD-free Middle East

This collaborative two-year research project beginning in 2010 seeks to identify and examine the historical impediments to the formation of a nuclear weapon-free-zone in the Middle East since it was first seriously proposed in 1974, and later expanded to include biological and chemical weapons and their means of delivery in the 1980s. With formal negotiations due to begin in 2012, it is argued that a detailed understanding of the norm dynamics particular to the region – across states, regional and international institutions, and civil society – is critical if the difficulties posed by mutual mistrust, suspicion and diverging interests – particularly between Egypt, Iran and Israel – are to be circumvented. The first phase of the project will result in a co-authored academic article in an internationally-peer reviewed journal in late 2011.

[Investigators: Joseph A. Camilleri (La Trobe University), Michael Hamel-Green (Victoria University), Marianne Hanson (University of Queensland) and N.A.J. Taylor (University of Queensland). Total funding: $8,000. Funding body: Institute for Human Security, La Trobe University]