NHRI Conference Assures Continued Cooperation with Working
Group
Participants during the First Regional Conference on Building
Networks to Strengthen ASEAN Human Rights Cooperation, held
in Makati City on April 3 to 6, 2006, agreed that the four
national human rights institutions in the ASEAN region should
continue to collaborate with the Working Group for an ASEAN
Human Rights Mechanism (the Working Group) towards the establishment
of an appropriate regional mechanism on human rights as
envisaged in the Joint Communiqué of the ASEAN Ministerial
Meeting in Singapore in 1993.
Representatives from national human rights institutions
of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand; ministries
of foreign affairs and other government offices from Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam; the Working Group; and
the ASEAN Secretariat resolved to engage the ASEAN Eminent
Persons’ Group in order to ensure that the ASEAN Charter
includes a principle calling for the establishment of an
ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism.
“This conference represents a positive step in the
right direction towards the eventual establishment of national
human rights institutions in all the countries in the ASEAN
region,” said Human Rights Commission of Malaysia
(Suhakam) Vice Chairman Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Simon
Sipaun in his opening remarks. “These institutions
could become an effective pressure group to persuade their
respective governments that they have nothing to lose by
having an ASEAN Human Rights mechanism which is already
in existence in the other continents of the world except
in Asia,” he added. “If the creation of a Human
Rights Mechanism for Asia appears too ambitious at present,
I believe its establishment for the ASEAN region would be
a more realistic goal. Any development which can contribute
towards the achievement of such an objective would be welcomed
and appreciated.”
