부산대학교 도서관

In 2003 ASEAN Heads of State committed themselves with the Bali Concord II to a dedicated plan of action on the regional level to deal with transboundary environmental issues such as degredation and pollution. Implicit in this statement is the economic, health and broader security implications of transboundary haze emanating from massive forest fires in Kalimantan (Borneo) Indonesia which began in a massive nature in 1997 and have since occurred annually no less than 11 times. While ASEAN has engaged this security issue with integrative rhetoric annual fires attest to the fact that regional level mechanisms cannot stop this phenomenon. It is my argument that human security interests in the realm of haze pollution will be sacrificed for national security concerns of economy and as such regional level frameworks add little value and are essentially empty frameworks. I will demonstrate that economic interests both private and public in logging and palm oil production are the reason why nothing substantial has been done to stop haze pollution. As such the nature of human security and ASEAN's equivalent of comprehensive security rings hollow not due to regime stability as Gerstl posits but to domestic and foreign economic interests linked to the larger political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]