CSO Dialogues with ASEAN on the ASEAN Community Blueprints





On 22-23 February 2011, the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism organized a discussion to identify the human rights impact and implications of the ASEAN Community Blueprints in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. Participants include representatives of the ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), Ministries of Foreign Affairs, ASEAN government line agencies working on or handling the discussions on the ASEAN Community Blueprints, and participants from international and regional civil society organizations. They recognized the importance of the free flow of information and engagements to have a better understanding of the Community Blueprints. They also agreed on the important role played by the Working Group in providing a mechanism for dialogue between ASEAN and its stakeholders.

Apart from providing a platform to foster discussions among the civil society groups and governments of ASEAN, the meeting also served as a venue to promote better understanding among the different ASEAN stakeholders of the various concerns and issues confronting the ASEAN Community Blueprints vis-à-vis human rights.

During the meeting, one of the important issues that emerged is the free flow of information. Representatives from civil society groups stressed the difficulty in gathering information from ASEAN. “The free flow of information and transparency [provided in the Political-Security Community Blueprint] must not be limited to inter-state transparency, but must also ensure the people’s right to information,” said one of the participants.

On the other hand, representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat remarked that documents which have already been approved and adopted by the ministers or heads of states are all available in their website and made public. Ms. Glenda Reyes of the ASEAN Economic Community department further shared that ASEAN also has versions that are easily understood by the general public.

Taking into consideration the varying perspectives of civil society and ASEAN governments, it can be observed that indeed, there exists an information gap between ASEAN and other stakeholders. Thus, the need to narrow down this gap and prioritize addressing this issue for better cooperation and coordination. On this note, H.E. Sayakane Sisouvong, Deputy-Secretary General for ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) shared that ASEAN has designed an ASEAN television news program, ASEAN regional quiz and a video game as some of the ways to bridge the information gap. Conducting dialogues is also an important opportunity for information sharing and interaction.

In relation, another point raised is the lack of a formal mechanism for dialogue and engagement between ASEAN and civil society groups on the issue of human rights. The civil society groups pointed out that on the promotion and protection of human rights in the APSC Blueprint, for instance, the AICHR still does not have rules of engagement and is therefore unable to engage with civil society groups. They emphasized that this should be a priority of ASEAN because having proper modalities that allow “meaningful participation” of various stakeholders show how sincere ASEAN is in moving towards a people-centered ASEAN.

Towards the end, the participants agreed that while there is still no institutional framework for free flow of information and formal engagements, dialogues such as this should be carried out and further explored. This way, both the ASEAN governments and civil society groups will be more aware and have greater appreciation of each others’ efforts towards the pursuit of a vision of an ASEAN Community by 2015.

The Discussion on the ASEAN Community Blueprints in Luang Prabang is a follow-up to an initial meeting in Bangkok in October 2010. The first meeting had the human rights advocates as its main participants who scrutinized the three community blueprints to concretely identify their human rights implications and impact. The observations from the October 2010 meeting served as a baseline of discussion for the February 2011 meeting.