South-East Asia gets "toothless" human rights commission

Oct 23, 2009, 3:00 GMT

   Cha-am, Thailand - The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was scheduled to inaugurate Friday the region's first intergovernmental human rights commission, which critics have already dismissed as a 'toothless' body.

   The 15th ASEAN Summit plus associated summits being held Friday to Sunday in Cha-am, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok, are due to see leaders signing 43 documents including the declaration on the inauguration of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights.

   The much-debated commission has been faulted for lacking independence from the ten participating ASEAN governments, which include human rights pariah Myanmar and other poor performers such as Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

   Commissioners on the new ASEAN human rights body are appointed by the respective governments, raising immediate questions about its effectiveness.

   The commission has no mandate to intervene in human rights violations in member countries, but will concentrate more on promoting regional understanding of human rights issues.

   'The ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights will have to work hard to establish itself as a credible regional mechanism and help close the gap between human rights rhetoric and the reality on the ground,' said Homayapun Alizadeh, head of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for South-East Asia.

   ASEAN has been widely criticized in the past for not dealing with human rights abuses in its own backyard, specifically for failing to pressure member Myanmar, also called Burma, to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners. Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house detention.

   The summit is expected to see the grouping reiterate calls for Suu Kyi's release to allow her and other political prisoners to participate in a scheduled election next year in Myanmar.

   'The request for the release of Madame Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners stands,' Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said before the summit's start.

   The summit is also due to see the signing of declarations on food security, regional connectivity, disaster management and cultural exchange.

   Thailand is this year's chair of ASEAN, which now holds two summits per annum. Next year Vietnam will chair the grouping which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

   Besides drawing the leaders of ASEAN, the leaders of Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, the grouping's main partners, are also scheduled to attend the summit in Cha-am.