East Asia, Peacekeeping Operations, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

Focusing on East Asia, this collection explores the paradox of functional regional cooperation in the areas of humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and UN Peacekeeping operations, in a context of increasing regional tensions and threats.

East Asia - comprising the states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People''s Republic of Korea - is facing a range of human, traditional, climate and ideational threats. In addressing some of these threats particularly those arising from climate induced disasters this region has been able to develop some ad-hoc cooperative practices that, according to functional logics of regional integration, could lead to longer term sustained coordinated responses and even regional partnerships. Similarly, the region is increasingly contributing to UN peacekeeping operations where these states also cooperate in the context of an UN-led mission. Yet, despite the potential for these