This report summarises the presentations and discussions that took place during the workshop “Future of Human Rights and Democracy in Asia”, held in Bangkok, Thailand on 27 July 2015. The workshop was jointly organised by the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) and the Asia Democracy Network (ADN). It was attended by 30 participants representing 21 organisations – see annex I for a complete list.
The workshop was part of a series of events taking place in the region under the theme “Future of Human Rights and Democracy in Asia” throughout 2015. The first workshop took place on 16 May 2015 in Gwangju, South Korea, as part of the Gwangju Asia Forum.
There were several reasons to want to do this exercise in 2015. FORUM-ASIA was about to celebrate its 25 year anniversary in 2016, something that was to be commemorated during its General Assembly at the beginning of the year.
The inputs gathered during the series of events were to be used both to develop an anniversary campaign, but also to review its Five-Year Strategic Plan.
At the same, the series of events were to serve as input to a joint initiative to develop an Asian Declaration or Compact for Human Rights and Democracy as a tool to articulate the people’s vision and strategies for human rights and democracy movement in Asia. The Declaration or Compact was expected to be adopted in 2018 during the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
The event aimed to reflect on human rights and democracy in the past decades and identify emerging trends and issues in socio-political-economic contexts in Asia. Eventually, the event was intended to help to develop a collective vision on human rights and democracy and explore ways to create more synergetic impact of the civil society movement in the future.
