Last week, the 10 members of ASEAN signed a charter including an article that provides for the formation of a human rights commission. This body will start its operations once it receives its terms of reference, which are to be defined by ASEAN's foreign ministers.
One would have expected that this commission would attack human rights violations in the region by creating a secretariat to hear allegations and press member governments to address them.
But a few days after the charter was inked, an internal ASEAN report shed light on the likely -- and comical -- terms of reference.
The task force that consulted with member governments in drawing up the commission instead served up rationalization of rights violations and the privileging of government over citizen.
While civic groups had worried that ASEAN would set up a powerless agency, if the commission is built on the present report's recommendations, it may serve to actively oppose the region's progress on human rights.
The process was led by Singapore, a choice that was always going to ring alarm bells. The task force's report said the human rights agency should, in the spirit of ASEAN, prevent the 10 countries from meddling in each other's internal affairs and "oppose external influence attempting to interfere in the human rights issues of any ASEAN member state."
The steps leading to an ASEAN human rights body have been neither democratic nor transparent. As civic groups have noted, ASEAN did not listen to human rights groups, of which the region has no shortage, in determining the commission's powers.
The crisis in Myanmar, which flared so close to the signing of the charter, has made the need for an effective regional human rights body more evident. But ASEAN's rights commission, as envisioned in the report, will probably side with the junta in the face of international pressure by endeavoring to persuade other governments to mind their own business.
Taiwan was quick to praise ASEAN for a job well done and to associate the nation with the economic and other progress of ASEAN's member countries.
Perhaps the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should not have been so quick to pat ASEAN on the back. Governments like Taiwan that have made considerable progress on human rights issues lend themselves little respectability by expressing token concern over the task force's cynical guidelines. Instead of questioning the purpose of the rights commission, Taipei has been handing out laurels.
After ASEAN leaders signed the charter, they sat down with the EU to talk shop. The EU came to the table demanding progress on Myanmar. In addition to endorsing a five-year trade and security plan for the two blocs, ASEAN and the EU issued a joint statement calling on the junta to release dissidents and make other immediate improvements.
But Singapore -- which has a considerable financial interest in good relations with the junta -- dragged its feet, urging the EU to move beyond Myanmar in its ASEAN dealings.
It's all just more of the same. Economic opportunities will continue to be pursued independent of human rights concerns, and while ASEAN members will continue to discuss human rights, their resolve to actually improve the human rights environment is a mirage, rendering the human rights mechanism a sham body, offering mere lip service to the EU.
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