Roadmap for an ASEAN Human
Rights Mechanism
Introduction
It has been a long and winding road.
In 1993 the Foreign Ministers of the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN) broached the possibility of establishing
an (inter-governmental) mechanism on human rights for the
region as follows:
“ (The Foreign Ministers) in support of the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action (of the World Conference
on Human Rights) agreed that ASEAN should also consider
the establishment of an appropriate regional mechanism on
human rights.”
It is ten years on, since that seminal statement. Yet,
no such mechanism has been established, and to date, ASEAN
Governments have not yet put forward ideas on the shape
and substance of such mechanism. It is thus high time to
move from mere intention to more concretization.
Developments
The impetus for developing a regional inter-governmental
human rights system was provided by the World Conference
on Human Rights in 1993 in its reiteration that there is
“the need to consider the possibility of establishing
regional and sub-regional arrangements for the promotion
and protection of human rights where they do not already
exist”. Since all ASEAN countries were represented
at this World Conference, they were and are part of this
momentum.
Subsequently ASEAN parliamentarians added their support
to the impetus by their adoption of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary
organization (AIPO) Declaration on Human Rights in 1993
stating that “it is likewise the task and responsibility
of member States to establish an appropriate regional mechanism
on human rights”.
