This talk will consider issues surrounding the UK’s ‘Indo-Pacific Tilt’ as set out in the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. Namely, why the ‘Indo-Pacific Tilt’ is required, what are its aims, where it is occurring and what form it has taken to date. The extent to which international law is relevant to the ‘Indo-Pacific Tilt’ will also be addressed as well as the principal geopolitical issues that arise. Finally, the likely challenges in delivering the ‘Indo-Pacific Tilt’ will also be considered.

Captain Ian Park is a logistics officer and barrister in the Royal Navy and has served in seven ships and deployed worldwide in support of the Royal Navy’s contribution to defence. He has also deployed as a legal adviser on operations to Afghanistan and, on many occasions, to the Middle East. Ian is, or has been, a Hudson Fellow at Oxford University, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School, a First Sea Lord’s Fellow and a Freeman of the City of London. He is a graduate of St. John’s College, Cambridge, has a doctorate in law from Balliol College, Oxford and has lectured at Harvard Law School, Cambridge University, Oxford University, The Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, Hanoi University, USSH Hanoi, The National University of Singapore, and Freiburg University amongst other institutions. Ian is the author of, inter alia, ‘The Right to Life in Armed Conflict’ (Oxford University Press, 2018) and in 2018 was the winner of the outstanding performance by an HM Forces barrister at the UK Bar Awards.