Enhancing Economic Co-Operation: A Regional Arbitration Centre for Asean?

Abstract

ECONOMIC co-operation within ASEAN 1 can be said to have seriously begun only at the beginning of the nineties. Prior to that, it was well known that, ASEAN as a co-operative grouping, had existed mainly with a political and strategic focus. It is with this focus that ASEAN managed to establish and maintain cohesiveness through the years despite the shaky beginnings of what has been described as a "brittle alliance" borne of a common fear of communism. 2 And it is with this focus that ASEAN, as a regional grouping, has generally been hailed as a success.In contrast, the progress of economic co-operation within ASEAN has been described as slow and reluctant. 3 Whilst economic co-operation has always been part of the avowed reason for the regional grouping, 4 ASEAN's achievements in this area have, up until recent years, been insignificant. In the past, several ASEAN countries were following inward-looking and nationalistic policies. 3 National priorities and national sovereignty took precedence ahead of regional priorities, 6 unless the latter coincided with the former. This was largely due to differences in the levels of economic development and industrialisation among ASEAN countries. However, from around about the 1980s, ASEAN began adopting economic and financial liberalisation policies due to external pressures. Mr Lim Boon Heng the then Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore, 7 attributed the impetus for this trend of

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