First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Cong Phung: Viet Nam Won’t Be Last in ASEAN to Set Up a National Human Rights Commission

H.E. Le Cong Phung (center) engages the Working Group

Viet Nam will eventually create its own national human rights commission, H.E. Le Cong Phung, first deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam, assured the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism (Working Group) on July 29, 2007 at their meeting on the sidelines of the 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in Manila, Philippines.

The Working Group said that it was encouraged by Le’s statement and expressed its support. It is one of the Working Group’s advocacies to assist ASEAN member-states in setting up their own national human rights commissions. To date, only Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have national human rights commissions in ASEAN. Cambodia, which had just formed a joint committee that will draft a law enabling the creation of a national human rights commission, is seen to be next in line.

It would indeed be a significant milestone if, like its neighbors, Viet Nam establishes a national human rights commission by 2010. Not only will it be the ASEAN chair that year but the Vientiane Action Programme (VAP) – which, among others, calls for networking among national human rights commissions in the region – is also ending then.

“We will continue to engage Viet Nam for the creation of the proposed national human rights commission and for other human rights initiatives,” said Working Group Co-Chairperson Marzuki Darusman.