Asean human rights draft to get airing

 

 

Bangkok Post

 7/08/2012

 

Asean's human rights body will today submit its controversial rights declaration to the grouping's foreign ministers in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia is hosting the 45th Asean Foreign Ministers' Meeting from tomorrow until Thursday.

The six-page declaration, drawn up by the Asean Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) was shrouded in secrecy, civil groups claim.

The AICHR, launched when Thailand chaired Asean, was mandated under Article 4.2 of its Terms of Reference to develop an Asean Human Rights Declaration with a view to establishing a framework for human rights cooperation through various Asean conventions and other instruments dealing with human rights.

At the sixth meeting of the AICHR in Vientiane last year, a drafting committee was officially established to prepare a draft declaration. In January, the group submitted the draft to the AICHR for deliberation and debate.

Many Asean human rights groups have expressed disappointment with the AICHR, as the general public was largely excluded from the drafting. There had not been any substantive and broad-based regional consultation with the people in the region, except at the national level in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Consultations did not take place in Brunei, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam or Cambodia, which has the Asean chair this year.

On June 22, the first formal meeting with civil groups was held in Kuala Lumpur, but the draft was not revealed to the non-government organisations from each member country.

Sriprapha Petcharamesree, Thailand's AICHR representative, said despite the draft not being shared, the consultation was meaningful and participatory.

Ms Sriprapha said the AICHR did not agree with the minority voices like her's in advocating an open policy.

After the meeting, human rights activists continued to push for the declaration to be made public ahead of its adoption in November.

Shiwei Ye, a Bangkok-based representative of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), said the AICHR promised in Kuala Lumpur that the declaration would not fall below international standards. But he remained critical of its contents.

"The 10 Asean representatives on the AICHR may be happy with the Kuala Lumpur forum, but hundreds of civil society groups across the region are still shut out and waiting to have their input heard," Mr Ye said.

He said the declaration was supposed to be for the more than 500 million people of Asean.

By hiding the text behind a wall of secrecy and unsubstantiated promises, AICHR has exposed its fundamental flaws, that most of its commissioners do not seem interested in the people of Asean.

Ms Sriprapha said she did not feel the declaration was that bad as among the principles mentioned in it were the rights to development and peace.

On civil and political rights, the Asean declaration also mentions fair trials and judicial rights.

However, she noted that certain clauses showed limitations on how far the 10-member grouping will go in the preservation of national security and public morality.

 

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