Rule-based Order in the Indo-Pacific

The Indo-Pacific region extending from the eastern coast of Africa to the Pacific (mainly western Pacific) has emerged as a strategically important area in the global politics in terms of its resources, trade routes and platform for projecting political power. Nearly two-third of the container transport and more than half of the oil resources of the world pass through the waters of Indo- Pacific. It has highly contested areas like South China Sea and East China Sea in addition to six choke points namely Malacca Strait, Sunda Strait and Lombok Strait in the East and Bab el-Mandeb, Hormuz Strait, and Mozambique Channel in the West. In view of its strategic significance, demand has been raised for a rule based order in the Indo-Pacific. Only a rule based order can ensure peace as well as freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific.
This panel seeks to focus on the norms of a rule based order as stipulated in the Law of Sea Convention, 1982; the perspectives of the important stakeholders including that of ASEAN and QUAD; the issues involved in the rule based order in the Indo-Pacific region and the challenges and opportunities in realizing the goal of rule based order in this region. The theoretical as well as issue based research papers are invited from the serious scholar to discuss these issues.