SINGAPORE: The ASEAN Charter will transform the grouping from a loosely-organised regional body into a more rules-based organisation. The landmark document will give ASEAN legal personality, within a set of common principles.

Andrew Tan, spokesperson, ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, said: "We are going to establish a committee of permanent representatives starting next year. We are also going to strengthen the ASEAN Secretariat by appointing two new deputy secretary generals and also establishing two high level panels - one to look into the dispute settlement mechanism for ASEAN as a whole and also for the human rights body."

To support the expanded duties of the ASEAN Secretariat, member countries will increase their individual budgets this year, from a current US$1.6 million each, to US$2 million each.

One of the key areas of the Charter is the setting up of dispute settlement mechanisms for non-political agreements.

Rodolfo Severino, Director, ASEAN Studies Centre, said: "We have a dispute settlement mechanism for economic agreements. But for the others, socio-cultural, political security, we don't have. So the idea is for dispute settlement mechanisms to be embedded from now on in each ASEAN agreement."

The Charter was signed by leaders from all 10 ASEAN countries last November, but in order for it to come into force, full ratification is necessary.

It has come one step closer, with the deposit of the instrument of ratification for the ASEAN Charter by Myanmar. However, three members – Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand - have yet to do so.

The Charter calls for, among other things, the establishment of an ASEAN human rights body. A high level panel has been appointed to draft the terms of reference over the next year.

This will be done with recommendations from the working group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, a coalition of government and civil society groups.

ASEAN officials have said that to date, only about 30 per cent of ASEAN's agreements have been honoured and implemented.

Hence, this timely ratification and implementation of the Charter will strengthen ASEAN's image and send a clear signal to the international community that the regional grouping is well on track of achieving its goal of becoming an integrated community by 2015. - CNA/vm