ASEAN human rights body: a shroud over corpses or a new beginning?
17 August 2009 2:20 am

asean hrb.jpgThe Terms of Reference
for the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), approved
20 July at the 42nd meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers in Phuket,
Thailand contains some promising language. For the first time, a group of
nations guilty of severe human rights violations in every member state has
proclaimed that it will create a body which specifically focuses on promoting
and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms of the peoples of ASEAN. However, like all
good legal documents this one comes with lawyers clauses -it appears that
this body will do so whenever there is consensus that they should protect a
specific person or groups human rights.
asean hrb.jpg (Source: Nonviolence International Southeast Asia, 29 July 2009)
The Terms of Reference
for the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), approved
20 July at the 42nd meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers in Phuket,
Thailand contains some promising language. For the first time, a group of
nations guilty of severe human rights violations in every member state has
proclaimed that it will create a body which specifically focuses on promoting
and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms of the peoples of ASEAN. However, like all
good legal documents this one comes with lawyers clauses -it appears that
this body will do so whenever there is consensus that they should protect a
specific person or groups human rights.

We all knew such a move
would be difficult in ASEAN, and it is too much to expect an explicit working
document from a sanctioning meeting, however the document fails to give any
guidance regarding how the universality of human rights norms will be
protected by a body which works under ASEAN's principle of non-interference.

The proposed design has
the members of the AICHR representing each government and appointed by them
and capable of replacement at any time by the appointing government. The
AICHR is to give its 'studies' and reports to each Foreign Minister. This is
hardly a independent and transparent body. The proposed design does not give
a mandate for the AICHR to have powers to monitor, investigate and report on
human rights records or operate with independence. Without these, the body is
likely to be a shroud over human rights abuses within the region than a
genuine effort to protect human rights within the region.

Nonviolence
International believes that the protection and promotion of human rights in
ASEAN requires the creation of a fully independent regional body which has a
unambiguous mandate to both protect and promote human rights with clear
monitoring and investigative powers. This must be done through universal
principles and internationally agreed treaties and standards.

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