Bougainville, Papua New Guinea and the Partial Implementation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement

Please note that this is a hybrid event. For online attendance please sign up to obtain the Zoom link. Access link will be delivered via email upon registration.

The Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) ended the most serious and costly conflict in the Pacific since the end of the Second World War. An example of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), the BPA is a detailed and complex set of arrangements. These arrangements include provisions for demilitarisation and the certification of weapons disposal, territorial autonomy and a referendum on Bougainville’s long term political future. In the 23 years since the agreement was signed, peace within the Autonomous Region of Bougainville has, for the most part, been sustained. But what might explain this absence of conflict, and to what degree has the implementation of the BPA achieved its stated goals?

Join DPA Doctoral Candidate Kevin Pullen as he presents his Thesis Proposal Review on the partial implementation of the BPA. In this seminar, Kevin will outline the direction of his proposed research, that will draw extensively on his experience and observations supporting the Bougainville peace process, to examine how the design of the BPA has impacted implementation, and the likely impact this could have on the risk of civil war recurrence.

Speaker

Kevin has lived and worked in Papua New Guinea for more than a decade. For the last 6 years he has been engaged as an adviser to support the Bougainville peace process and the implementation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA). His doctoral research is focused on the complexities of the administrative arrangements related to the BPA and inter-governmental capacity constraints. Other than Anthony Regan and Thiago Cintra Oppermann, Kevin is also supervised by Gordon Peake from United States Institute of Peace.