The Regional Institutional Development of Human Rights in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The deliberation on a Southeast Asian human rights regime dates back to the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. From then, the emergence of an idea on regional institutional human rights development arose to address the absence of human rights mechanisms in the region. This chapter offers a critical analysis on the human rights institutional development in ASEAN. The initial focus of the chapter is on illustrating the step by step progress toward the establishment of an ASEAN human rights institution. This progress will lead to the understanding of how the demand for a human rights institution has been made by ASEAN. The arguments here are supported by the analysis of the Joint Communiqués of the ASEAN Ministerial Meetings (AMM) from 1993 to 2010 and the Workshop statements of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism (Working Group) which documents ASEAN elite's official speeches and opinions. The analysis on this point demonstrates ASEAN's attempt to build regional agents in terms of human rights. The principal-agent theory is applied to offer understanding on the logical relationship between member states (principal) and regional human rights institutions (agent). Institutional theory is applied with respect to the second point of this analysis, which is to scrutinize the creation of a human rights institution known as the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). The functions of the AICHR are illustrated through an investigation of its mandates, work plans and statements of meetings since the year of establishment to clarify why regional human rights institutions have been vital and particularly how the S. Netipatalachoochote (*) Faculty of Law and the