Drafters of ASEAN’s
Charter must include references to human rights and a human rights
mechanism. For too long, ASEAN has wavered and evaded the issue of
human rights, failing the people of South-East Asia who continue to
suffer appalling and intolerable human rights violations and abuses
on a daily basis.

In an
open letter sent today to the members of the High Level Task Force
responsible for drafting the ASEAN Charter, FORUM-ASIA urged the
members to be more explicit on the inclusion of human rights,
which should form the fundamental principles of any credible
inter-governmental charter. With the Charter due to be presented for
signature at the 13th ASEAN Summit in November, the open
letter stated that at this late stage of the drafting process there
should be no doubt left as to including a specific focus on human
rights.

For too long, ASEAN has
wavered on and evaded the issue of human rights, failing the people
of Southeast Asia who continue to suffer appalling and intolerable
human rights violations and abuses on a daily basis. Including human
rights in the Charter will offer the best chance in forty years to
change this situation. To fall down at this point will again allow
ASEAN to turn a blind eye to the worst occurrences in the region.

During its founding
years, ASEAN was able to hide behind the principle of
“non-interference” as a means of guarding newly established
states against challenges to their legitimacy. Arguments that the
fundamental rights of human beings can be violated by state agents in
the name of “culture” or “economic growth” have been
thoroughly discredited. Yet some governments in the region continue
to defend the outdated principle of “non-interference” and reject
human rights principles, as seen with the latest attempts to have
references to human rights removed from the upcoming Charter and
“alternative” terminology put in its place.

Undoubtedly, the lives of
government officials are made infinitely easier by sticking to the
notion of “non-interference” at the expense of human rights.
However, an increasingly well-informed civil society in Southeast
Asia will no longer accept such intransigence and, furthermore, will
no longer accept being dismissed with declarations, work plans and
grandiose statements that have no effect on the human rights
situation on the ground.

The open letter to the
members of the High Level Task Force emphasises that the only
prospect for developing a responsible regional inter-governmental
body is for the Charter of ASEAN to lay the foundations with clear
references to human rights and a human rights mechanism.