ASEAN

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.

An assessment of human rights progress in SE Asia in the wake of the 'Asian values' debate, culminating in the formal regional institutionalisation of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). Chapters examine the negotiation of AICHR, the evolving relationship between ASEAN states' and the international human rights system, and the historical and experiential reasons for hesitancy.

This book discusses developments concerning the growth of human rights institutions and processes in ASEAN. Several countries have now set up national human rights commissions and at the regional level, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights was established. The author analyses these developments from the angle of key challenges facing the region, the need for more checks and balances, and prospects for more effective protection of human rights.

This book evaluates the national implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in ASEAN. Working with country-specific research teams, the contributors compiled detailed case-studies of CRPD implementation in each country in ASEAN. This book presents a detailed overview of the problem, the relevant literature, and the conceptual framework, and then it explores the implementation of the CRPD in each of the ten countries in Southeast Asia.