Discussion Paper Series 01/25 - A Treaty of Rarotonga Fit for the Future?
Author: Greg Fry
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Executive Summary
In his launch of the Ocean of Peace in the Fiji Parliament on 5 August 2024, Prime Minister Rabuka made clear that the management of geostrategic competition was a key rationale behind its establishment. He highlighted the need to protect the region from acts of militarisation and above all, the use of nuclear weapons.
The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (hereafter “Treaty of Rarotonga”) has a major contribution to make to this key objective of the Ocean of Peace. With appropriate revitalisation, rather than amendment, the Treaty of Rarotonga is fit for use as a response to escalating geopolitical and military contest. Whereas the Biketawa Declaration focuses on the issues of internal peace and conflict resolution measures, and the Boe Declaration with establishing the broader regional security priorities outside geopolitics (human security and climate change), the Treaty of Rarotonga is the only existing treaty focused on the management of nuclear state involvement in the region and is already acknowledged as a Pacific contribution to world peace.
The Treaty of Rarotonga’s relevance in the contemporary strategic context depends on its prohibition on the stationing of nuclear weapons in the nuclear free zone (art 5). The power of this prohibition depends in turn on how the caveat clause (5.2), which allows the ‘visits’ of warships and planes, is interpreted. Reinvigorating the Treaty of Rarotonga would therefore need to begin with a special meeting of the Parties to discuss the meaning of ‘visits’ and of ‘stationing’, given the new deployment strategies of the great powers.
This special meeting of the Parties would necessarily require a discussion of US and Chinese contemporary strategic posture in the Pacific and their emphasis on developing more flexible strategies, with dual facilities and rotational deployment rather than permanent bases. Such strategies may effectively enable the continuous deployment of nuclear weapons through permanent rotation, as at Tindal Air Base in Northern Australia, though this activity may be described as visits, and therefore as exempt.
Key questions include whether the term ‘visits’ needs further definition, and if so, what that definition might be. Should it allow long term visits or rotational visits of possibly nuclear armed vessels and planes that are part of an operational war fighting system; or visits that are part of a diffused flexible deployment? Or should it be limited to particular missions such as hospital ships, disaster relief and transit visits for shore leave; or limited to ships and planes that are not nuclear capable?
The other associated area of reinvigoration that is required to make the Treaty of Rarotonga fit for purpose is the active and regular use of the accountability mechanisms of the Treaty. This includes the Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General calling for reports on new developments in basing activity (9.1) and preparing an annual report to Parties (article 9.3), the holding of an annual meeting of Parties to consider reports (art 10), and the appointment where necessary of a special inspection team (annex 4).
About the Author:
Greg Fry is Honorary Associate Professor at the Department of Pacific Affairs, ANU. He was formerly Director of Graduate Studies at the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy, ANU (2016-17), Academic Co-ordinator of Graduate Studies in Diplomacy and International Affairs at the University of the South Pacific (2011-15), and Director of Graduate Studies in International Affairs at ANU (1988-2011). His recent publications on Pacific international affairs and diplomacy include The New Pacific Diplomacy (co-edited with Sandra Tarte, ANU Press, 2015) and Framing the Islands: Power and Diplomatic Agency in Pacific Regionalism (ANU Press, 2019). His publications on the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone include ‘Toward a South Pacific Nuclear-free Zone’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June/July 1985; ‘A Nuclear-free Zone for the Southwest Pacific: Prospects and Significance’, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU, Working Paper no. 75, September 1983; ‘The South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone: Significance and Implications’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, vol 18, no 2, June 1986; and ‘The South Pacific Nuclear-Free Zone’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, World Armaments and Disarmaments Yearbook, 1986, chapter 21.