An engaging consultation workshop by the Singapore Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism
By Kelvin Teo | Published: August 23, 2009

SINGAPORE – MARUAH Singapore (Singapore Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism) held an engaging consultation workshop at the Novotel Clarke Quay on 22nd August 2009. The morning kicked off with a series of presentations by distinguished speakers. It was then followed by a series of discussions on a range of ASEAN Human Rights related topics and recommendations together with their adoption.

Earlier this year, an ASEAN Human Rights commission was set up to confront Human Rights abuses within the region. This setup was a pleasant surprise to me. During my undergraduate days, quite a substantive number of readings I had to do for my course on ASEAN studies held a cynical view of ASEAN; one scholar went to the extent of labelling ASEAN “a country club”, where little gets done. However, in some ways, the setup of the commission can be seen as a pro-active stance in confronting the issues pertaining to Human Rights within the region. Although the body lacks the power to punish ASEAN member states for violations, nonetheless it is still a small step in the right direction. Ultimately, it is the commitment of every ASEAN state to the Human Rights cause that will make the aspiration to improve the status of Humans Rights in ASEAN a reality.

During the presentations, Dr Sriprapha Petcharamesree brought up an interesting point about the nature of the Representative of each ASEAN state to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) – in her opinion, the representative should speak on behalf of the whole country instead of the government. She went on to discuss the situation in Thailand whereby the representative may not necessarily be a government official, and he may come from a non-governmental organization or a civil society. In Singapore, one of the two routes to the appointment of a representative is is to enter the Parliament as a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP). From an organizational standpoint and in my opinion, the NMP route may be problematic from the continuity viewpoint. Each member state representative is required to serve a term of three years and may only be re-appointed for one more term. However, the appointing government of each individual country has the power to replace the representative. An NMP term lasts two and a half years, half a year less than the three years, which the representative is required to serve at AICHR. If the NMP is not reappointed for another term, it may be problematic due to the issue of continuity. Assuming we cannot change the rules of appointments at the national (Singapore) and regional level (AICHR), a recommendation will be that the outgoing representative will serve as an advisor to the incoming one at AICHR so that there will at least be some form of continuity of their work. This not only applies to Singapore but to other ASEAN member states where the intra-political landscape changes, for example, a complete shake-up at the Foreign Ministry, could result in discontinuity in the Human Rights advocacy work by the last representative. In the event that a particular representative loses his governmental appointment due to such factors, provisions should be made to ensure that the latter plays a pro-active role in ensuring the continuity of his work. If an incumbent has already served two terms, he may also serve as an advisor to the incoming representative to ensure continuity.

The discussion session threw up a few pertinent points and one of the recurring themes was the role played by the media within the Human Rights landscape in each ASEAN nation. The media will be on the ground to capture any information on Human Rights abuses, and this will be investigated, and the information will be transmitted to the representative, and finally the regional body. Thus, it goes without saying that the media bodies have the responsibility to provide objective reports on Human Rights abuses, and avoid being vague which portrays the impression that it is trying to do a cover-up and sensational at the other extreme, which exaggerates the facts and stretches the truth. Thus, an ideal situation will be the independent and objective media intertwined in a network with Human Rights organizations both locally and internationally. A fellow writer at the Kent Ridge Common, Lester, brought up an important point during the discussions on the need to have an information-sharing network to alert fellow regional counterparts of any information pertaining to Human Rights abuse. The independent media definitely has a role to play in such an integrated network.

Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation

There was an important point that I had intended to raise during the discussions, which has a lot to do with the indicator of success in improving Human Rights within each respective ASEAN nation, but was unable to do so due to time constraints. Shirley Arnstein published a landmark paper in the American Journal of Planners in 1969 and espoused on what is popularly known in policy planning lingua franca as the Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation. There are a total of 8 rungs on this ladder – the lowest rung is “Manipulation” with “citizen control” at the top. Arnstein broke the rungs into different categories as shown in the figure below.

Each rung in the Arnstein’s ladder represents a degree in citizen power in influencing planning and policies. Placation, consultation and informing represents the middle rung of tokenism, which is a platform adopted by planning authorities in attempting to fulfill their participation responsibilities while still maintaining the dominant power structure. The top rungs represent a model where participants are able to establish a partnership with the state planners and have the power to share decision-making responsibilities. In addition, they are able to influence and control outcomes.

Thus, why is the Arnstein’s ladder important to the issue of Human Rights advocacy? Simply because it tells us whether the have nots or those whom have suffered Human Rights abuses have the avenue to bring the situation they face to the planning authorities so that proactive measures can be taken to effect policy changes to protect the victims. For instance, a state whose Arnstein’s ladder is at the top rung is able to come up with effective measures to combat Human Rights abuses because the Human Rights advocacy groups will partner with the state planners in the decision-making process. The advocacy groups will also have control over the nature of the outcomes.

A recurring point brought up during the presentations was the role of democracy in improving the status of Human Rights in each state. It would now seem obvious that the top rungs of the Arnstein’s ladder are synonymous with the true ideal of democracy because they represent citizen power. Thus, what might be useful is an evaluation of the degree of citizen participation within each ASEAN state, or even at the level of individual polities within each ASEAN state itself. The Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation is one tool, but there are others. Desmond Connor published another ladder of citizen participation in the National Civic Review in 1988. The degree of citizenship participation elucidated by such tools will provide an indicator of success in achieving improvement in the status of Human Rights in each ASEAN state.

Well-Organized Workshop and Important Take Home Messages

All in all, the Workshop was well-organized, and there are definitely important take-home messages for us to ponder upon. What was important was that the participants are stimulated to brainstorm on ideas that will contribute to the overall goal of improving Human Rights in our ASEAN region.

Source: Source: The Kent Ridge Common

Click here for the full recommendations from the recent public consultation on the AICHR organized by the Singapore Working Group on an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism.