Foreign ministers to review efforts to create ASEAN Community on Sunday
By Augustine Anthuvan, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 19 July 2008 0044 hrs

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SINGAPORE : Southeast Asian foreign ministers are expected to review on-going efforts to create an ASEAN Community by 2015 when they meet in Singapore this Sunday.

One hot topic is the setting up of an ASEAN Human Rights Body, within the ASEAN Charter.

ASEAN leaders signed a charter in Singapore last November that aims to create an economically, socially and politically linked community by 2015.

Just eight months later, their respective foreign ministers are meeting to gauge the progress being made.

At Shangri-La Hotel, senior officials from the 10 ASEAN member countries have been working behind closed doors, often into the wee hours of the night, fine-tuning the documents that will be presented to the ASEAN foreign ministers for further discussion and subsequent endorsement when the meetings kick off formally on Monday.

But how will ASEAN's long-standing principle of non-interference in each others affairs affect the functioning of an ASEAN Human Rights Body?

Associate Professor Tan See Seng, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, said: "As long as you have the state system in place, you will always have the issue of non-interference there - it is a principle, it is part of international law.

"So I think it is not quite adequate just to say that because of non-intervention, because of non-interference... we can't move on to do other things.

"The crucial challenge for the Human Rights Body would be to reconcile these two things. You have non-interference on the one side, and you have human rights on the other side. How do you find the balance between the two? When one looks at the European institutions for example, that was their test as well."

Holger Standertskjold, Ambassador, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Singapore, said: "The EU welcomes the formation of the Human Rights Body. It's very good from our point of view that ASEAN had wanted to bring the human rights (issue) onto the agenda.

"And we wish that this would also bring a discussion on the human rights issues both regionally and in each individual member states. Hopefully, this will increase the understanding of importance of human rights in the region."

A High Level Panel will meet with the ASEAN foreign ministers on Monday, before drafting the terms of reference of the ASEAN Human Rights Body. - CNA/ms