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Human rights and the future of ASEAN
The more ASEAN remains bogged down by institutional paralysis, the longer it will take for the people of the region to take notice of it.
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Gender solidarity: Male members of an activist group attend a demonstration to highlight the struggles and issues faced by Filipino women in Quezon City, suburban Manila, on March 6, ahead of International Women's Day. (AFP/Jam Sta Rosa)
T
his year will mark the 10th anniversary of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and there is no better place than Phnom Penh to celebrate the achievement.
I have no other option but to employ irony and sarcasm, because the reality is that there is little to celebrate in terms of human rights in the region, especially from the institutional perspective of ASEAN.
But it was in Phnom Penh that an agreement was reached on this document 10 years ago and it is going to be interesting to have the leaders of the ASEAN review their “accomplishments” in the area.
Surely, they are going to be satisfied with them, self-validating the ASEAN’s understanding that human rights, no matter the fact that they are unequivocally universal, must, in reference to Southeast Asia, first fit the local context and be subdued to a narrow and limited interpretation of an often unjust rule of law and an overarching principle of national sovereignty.
Yet, in truth, this can also be an opportunity to encourage the current chairman of ASEAN, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, to reflect on the sad state of human rights with us all, starting with his own country.
From this perspective, we should celebrate that the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) is contemplating a formal event to discuss the declaration; perhaps a willingness will even be found to hold, by the end of the year, an ASEAN-European Union Dialogue on Human Rights.
Let us also not forget that the Cambodian chairmanship declared 2022 as the Year of ASEAN Youth and one of the key goals is to work out better and stronger ways to “institutionalize” youth engagement in the ASEAN decision-making process.
