Calls for Human Rights Protection in Southeast Asia Renewed
in Roundtable Discussion
Calls for Human Rights Protection in Southeast
Asia Renewed in Roundtable Discussion
(December 18, 2006/ Jakarta) Just a few weeks shy of the
upcoming 12th
ASEAN Summit, government officials and civil society
leaders are calling for the inclusion of human rights in
the ASEAN Charter and the establishment of a regional human
rights mechanism. “The goal of the ASEAN Community
cannot be achieved until and unless the promotion and protection
of human rights is pervasive in the region,” Indonesian
Foreign Affairs Minister Hassan Wirajuda said in his keynote
address to the participants of the Second Roundtable Discussion
on Human Rights in ASEAN. He emphasized that ASEAN needed
to catch up with other regional groupings with human rights
mechanisms. The Roundtable Discussion, entitled “Challenges
and Opportunities for Human Rights in a Caring and Sharing
Community” was organized by the Working Group for
an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism (Regional Working Group)
and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia.
Participants see the imminent signing of a Declaration
of Cooperation among national human rights institutions
of Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand as a positive
step towards regional cooperation. It is also seen as a
likely precursor to the establishment of an ASEAN human
rights mechanism.
Secretary General Imron Cotan of the Indonesian Ministry
of Foreign Affairs praised the Roundtable Discussion as
a timely forum which tackles what an ASEAN Community implies
for its members. In his closing speech, he stated that a
caring and sharing ASEAN Community can only be realized
if ASEAN remains faithful to its human rights commitments
and that this can be effectively achieved by establishing
an ASEAN human rights mechanism.
Read
the summary of proceedings of “Challenges and Opportunities
for Human Rights in a Caring and Sharing Community”
here.
