Border security cooperation to combat transnational crime in the Pacific Islands

In this chapter, Henrietta McNeill considers border security cooperation to combat transnational crime, highlighting the well-established architecture and the duplications and contradictions when new forums are created. She provides an overview of the existing architecture in the border security space, through the triumvirate of the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police, Oceania Customs Organisation and Pacific Immigration Development Community. McNeill identifies that there is potential for duplication of this architecture through newly established organisations such as the Joint Heads of Pacific Security, which raises questions about the underlying motivations for creating additional fora. She also highlights the contradiction of the key partner states on transnational crime, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, being the main criminal deporting nations to the region.