Challenges of ASEAN at 40

Two weeks ago Dato Seri Syed Hamid Albar spoke on '40 Years of ASEAN: Its Evolution and its challenges today' at the LSE. Although Albar listed seven weaknesses of ASEAN [(1) Lack of coordination; (2) Overlapping jurisdiction between ministerial and sectoral agencies; (3) Proliferation of ASEAN bodies and meetings that perpetuate the 'talk shop' image; (4) Securing compliance with ASEAN decisions; (5) Organization structure including the ASEAN Secretariat; (6) Resource constraints of the organization; (7) ASEAN's (non-)role in external relations of member states], he still painted a generally positive picture of ASEAN's record and future prospects.

However the lack of transparency and consultation over the forthcoming draft ASEAN Charter as well as ASEAN's lack of concrete results in its engagement with the junta in Myanmar only serve to give more ammunition to critics and cynics.

The ASEAN Charter and the Human Rights mechanism

The Kuala Lumpur declaration of 12 December 2005 was hailed as an important first step towards a more effective ASEAN. A Charter could improve ASEAN's effectiveness by giving it legal personality, increase rules-based conduct of its affairs and strengthen its institutional framework and resource base. A year later, the Eminent Persons Group released its report (PDF) and pages 25-55 contain substantial recommendations about what should go into the Charter.

Most of the media attention focused on the recent announcement about how the draft Charter will include provisions for the establishment of an ASEAN human rights body. During the Q&A, a staff member from Amnesty International asked Albar if a copy of the draft Charter was available for comment. Albar's initial response was to point her towards the ASEAN Secretariat website before back-pedalling, emphasising that the current draft was not a final one - a wise move, because the draft is apparently not available in the public domain. It appears that the final draft will only be available a day before the next summit on 20 November 2007 which will be held in Singapore which is rather apt since there is considerable anxiety that this will be another case of decide first, solicit feedback later. Given that Myanmar did drop its objections to including the abovementioned provisions, one cannot expect too much from such a body or mechanism either.

Albar then sidestepped the issue by pointing out that the majority of the ASEAN member states (other than Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand) did not even have their own national human rights bodies. Touché - though there seems to have been a recent revival of activity by civil society groups to engage governments of member states on this issue as noted at the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, The Online Citizen and ThinkCentre. Albar then asserted that things should work from the national level up first before building up the regional level. But then this begs the question of why the provisions were mooted before such a precondition for effectiveness had yet to be met. One would have supposed that if it were a genuine human rights mechanism, a regional one could and should help to address problems at the national level.

ASEAN and Myanmar

There were several strongly worded questions about ASEAN not having anything to show for its engagement with the military regime in Myanmar (which was repeatedly referred to as 'Burma' by members of the audience). Albar employed several defences, from calling for patience to claiming that views were robustly expressed behind closed doors in ASEAN meetings. Certainly the Malaysian Foreign Minister was in an uneviable position in having to defend the indefensible. Despite the penchant to describe the ASEAN way as a "pragmatic and realistic approach" (Albar's own words), ASEAN's diplomacy and engagement has not proved very pragmatic or realistic in terms of achieving results on the Myanmar issue. Meanwhile ASEAN continues to put out rather feeble statements - this recent one from the 40th Ministerial meeting in Manila on 31 July 2007 is a case in point.

Such blandishments may soon be overtaken by events on the ground. The growing protests which had their genesis in fuel hike protests and then given a new lease of life by monks angry with ill treatment of their brethen have taken an omnious turn with the military government threatening to 'take action' against the protesters. Unless the protest movement's leaders are able to negotiate some sort of face-saving deal with the junta or to persuade enough soldiers to defect, we could very well see another Tiananmen-style massacre of unarmed civilians.

The international outrage following such an occurence may put considerable pressure on ASEAN to switch tack and suspend if not expel Myanmar outright. ASEAN's relative inaction can be contrasted unfavourably with how the African Union managed to effect some positive changes in Togo and Mauritania when it issued strong protests and even suspended the latter from its organizational activities after military coups in the two countries in 2005. But that could create a rather troublesome precedent for the rest of the member states.

A Caring and Sharing Community?

Despite the saccharine official rhetoric that recalls an American Greetings product line, the organization is still very much an instrument for regime security (the preservation of a particular domestic political establishment) rather than human security.

When Albar talked about the imperative to develop the 'we feeling' as solidarity among member states, he unintentionally hit the nail on the head on how the organization is still largely orientated towards the interests of regional states (and their controlling regimes) rather than the people of the region. Nonetheless, as Alex Au's excellent article about the what, why and how of a national and regional human rights mechanism has shown, individuals and civil society can still make themselves heard even if governments may not want to listen.

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