Can Asean Learn to Put People First?

By POKPONG LAWANSIRI

Recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Thailand, the country currently holding the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), came up with a campaign to call the regional grouping’s recently ratified charter the “Asean Charter for Asean Peoples.”

Some observers saw this as signalling a new and positive change for Asean, which has often been criticized for being a “governments’ club” that lacks the involvement of ordinary people.

On October 21, following the ratification of the charter by Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, Asean’s secretary general, Dr Surin Pitsuwan, reiterated that “Asean will be a rules-based, people-oriented and more integrated entity.”

It is in the chapter relating to the purposes of Asean that the charter vows to “promote a people-oriented Asean in which all sectors of society are encouraged to participate in, and benefit from … Asean integration and community building.”

While this is one of the more positive points within the charter, civil society groups are still sceptical whether Asean will actually live up to its promise of becoming a more people-oriented body. They point to the fact that civil society groups have never been informed of Asean processes as evidence of the association’s reluctance to embrace greater popular participation. They add that when they want to raise certain issues regionally or internationally, they typically bypass Asean and go directly to UN bodies.

As Asean increases its use of “people-first” rhetoric, civil society groups are asking themselves if the charter will actually succeed in making the intergovernmental body more receptive to the involvement of ordinary people in decision-making processes, and whether the charter will have the power to inspire people to demand a greater role in shaping their future.

A network of more than 40 civil society organisations has been monitoring the work of Asean to try to answer these questions. The Solidarity for Asian Peoples’ Advocacy (SAPA) Working Group on Asean examined the charter last year prior to its signing, and concluded that it was “a disappointment [since] it is a document that falls short of what is needed to establish a people-centred [Asean].”

Although the charter emphasizes Asean’s commitment to promoting and protecting human rights and espouses many other positive principles, such as social justice, respect for the rule of law, good governance, and respect for the UN Charter and international law, the grouping still insists that its core principles are non-interference and respect for consensus among member states.

The absurdity of clinging to the principle of non-interference in the affairs of countries belonging to the grouping is nowhere more evident than in Burma, where the human rights situation continues to deteriorate even as Asean professes to promote the fundamental rights of people throughout the region.

Asean has yet to assess the human rights situation in Burma since the country joined the association in 1997. The detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners, the continuing use of child soldiers, and the recent imposition of long prison sentences on dozens of Burmese human rights defenders, including Buddhist monks and leaders of the 88 Generation Students group who participated in protests last year, all serve to highlight the fact that Asean membership has had absolutely no positive influence on Burma’s military rulers.

When we look at the charter chapter by chapter, we can see that its vision of the grouping is still fundamentally state-centric, being written by government officials without genuine consultation with civic groups.

There is, for instance, no mention of the need for an institutionalised mechanism like the NGO Consultative Status to the UN, which would allow civil society to contribute to or comment on Asean’s decision-making process. Such a mechanism is not mentioned in chapters relating to the work of the Asean Summit, the Asean Coordinating Council, Asean Community Councils or the Asean Secretariat. The role of civil society is only mentioned in the chapter on the Asean Foundation, where the role of the foundation is described as promoting greater awareness of “Asean identity [and] close collaboration among the business sector, civil society, academia and other stakeholders in Asean.”

Asean leaders see civil society’s place as limited to the socio-cultural sphere, where they are allowed to discuss Asean policies among themselves. But civic groups are not permitted to play an important part in the decision-making process in the areas where they are most affected—namely, in the political-security and economic spheres.

Asean should take note that many civil society groups have a strong interest in seeing the association become a more relevant body in addressing issues that impact on people throughout the region, especially trans-boundary concerns such as migrant workers, human trafficking and the treatment of refugees, among others. This is especially pertinent to Asean’s plan to establish a human rights body.

The upcoming Asean Peoples’ Forum/4th Asean Civil Society Conference, which will be held in Bangkok, Thailand on December 12-14, prior to the 14th Asean Summit in Chiang Mai, is an important venue for Asean leaders and governments to actually listen to what people want Asean to be and to do.

The Asean Charter, while it is not the charter that the people actually wish to see, could be a start to making this body more people-oriented. Asean needs to open up to the people more in all its deliberations. This effort is a must for Asean governments if they wish to push for a more comprehensive and radical change. If not, the association will fail to achieve its professed goal of putting people at the center of the organization.

Pokpong Lawansiri is Southeast Asia Program Officer with the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA).