International Security (ISD)

Australia is committed to working with countries across the Indo-Pacific to champion a safe, secure and prosperous region by strengthening collective cyber resilience.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade leads Australia’s international engagement on cyber and critical technology across the Australian Government. 

As part of Australia’s cyber capacity building efforts, the Pacific Cyber Security Operational Network (PaCSON) was established in 2017.

The Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism leads the Counter Terrorism Branch. As part of the International Security Division, the Counter-Terrorism Branch advances Australia's interests in countering terrorism and violent extremism.

Australia is committed to the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. It has long championed international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts through a pragmatic, realistic and progressive approach.

Australia consistently and strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances.

The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (the Geneva Protocol 1925) was adopted in reaction to the horrific consequences of the extensive use of toxic gas during the First World War. The Protocol entered into force in 1928. It bans the use of 'asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices', as well as the use of 'bacteriological methods of warfare' by a state party to the Protocol against any country which is also a party to the Protocol. Australia acceded to the Geneva Protocol in 1930.