Can ASEAN Take Human Rights Seriously?

Critically examines ASEAN's human rights system in the context of Southeast Asian political-legal developments and the global human rights discourse

Alison Duxbury (Author), Hsien-Li Tan (Author)

9781108465908, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 March 2019

426 pages
21.6 x 13.8 x 2 cm, 0.6 kg

The adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2007 represented a watershed moment in the organisation's history - for the first time the member states explicitly included principles of human rights and democracy in a binding regional agreement. Since then, developments in the region have included the creation of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in 2009 and the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration in 2012. Despite these advances, many commentators ask whether ASEAN can take human rights seriously. The authors explore this question by comprehensively examining the new ASEAN human rights mechanisms in the context of existing national and international human rights institutions. This book places these regional mechanisms and commitments to human rights within the framework of the political and legal development of ASEAN and its member states and considers the way in which ASEAN could strengthen its new institutions to better promote and protect human rights.

1. Assessing human rights implementation in Southeast Asia
2. Understanding the tensions and ambiguities in Southeast Asian attitudes towards human rights
3. The utility of human rights mechanisms in the ASEAN region
4. Operationalising human rights in ASEAN
Conclusion: taking human rights seriously in ASEAN.

Subject Areas: International human rights law [LBBR], Public international law [LBB], Human rights [JPVH]