RtoP by increments: the AICHR and localizing the Responsibility to Protect in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The inclusion of the three paragraphs in the Outcome Document of the 2005 World Summit that make reference to the obligations of the state and the international community under the principle of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) has effectively raised a challenge to the traditional understanding of the principle of sovereignty in international relations. More importantly, their inclusion in the Outcome Document has effectively committed its signatories to RtoP as briefly outlined in the Document. The question, however, is whether or not states will hold themselves to this commitment? Among the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the commitment to RtoP under the Outcome Document is clearly at odds with the oft-emphasized commitment to the principle of non-interference that the members of the Association have long identified with. The establishment of new institutional forms, mechanisms, and blueprints within ASEAN, however, create opportunities for introducing emergent norms into the region. The ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) is representative of these new institutional forms. It is the immediate manifestation of the ASEAN declaration of support for the promotion and protection of human rights in the region. Though criticized as “lacking in teeth” especially on the provisions that have to do with the protection of human rights, the AICHR's mandated functions are very generally ambiguous in the way they are presented in its Terms of Reference. These “ambiguities” arguably open up the interpretation of its functions to a more liberal perspective, more so in terms of opening the envelope on the protective functions of the AICHR. In the same context, the same ambiguities in the TOR of the AICHR may be utilized as entrypoints for introducing elements of RtoP into the region. It also illustrates the need to consider a strategy of incremental localization in pushing the normalization of RtoP in Southeast Asia.

Keywords:

• Responsibility to Protect
• ASEAN
• ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights
• norm localization

Acknowledgments

Herman Kraft is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines at Diliman. He is also Executive Director at the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies (ISDS), Quezon City, the Philippines.

Notes

1 In a consultation held in Makati in March 2009, Ambassador Rosario G. Manalo, the Philippine representative to the high level panel drafting the TOR for the ASEAN Human Rights Body acknowledged that the regional body is supposed to be consultative in nature. Despite her argument that this merely refers to the consultative nature of ASEAN processes and not to the relationship between the body and ASEAN itself, this is an ingenuous distinction at best.

2 See also Luck (2008).

3 The Russian intervention in Georgia illustrates the context for these fears. Similarly, the US-led invasion of Iraq is another example among developing states of what could happen if intervention is made legitimate under any circumstance.

4 For a discussion on the applicability of RtoP to this case, see The Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (2008) ‘Cyclone Nargis and the Responsibility to Protect: Myanmar/Burma Briefing No. 2’ (16 May) available at http://www.r2pasiapacific.org/documents/Burma_Brief2.pdf.

5 Mr Leslie Gatan, then a Minister at the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the UN stated that the Philippines ‘will continue to engage actively on the issue to ensure that the United Nations efforts aimed at protecting civilians are implemented in ways that balance effectiveness in achieving the desired results against possible adverse consequences. We therefore look forward to the adoption of the Council's next resolution on the issue and will remain committed to its objectives’. This was a statement made at the Security Council open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, 9 December 2005.

6 Part of a statement made at the World Summit, UN General Assembly, 14–16 September 2005.

7 The ASEAN Troika is a specially designated group entrusted to deal with sensitive issues. In this case, the Troika was made up of the Foreign Ministers of the current, previous and incoming Chair of the ASEAN Standing Committee.

8 This was a point that he has repeated in a number of speaking engagements including the 16th ASEAN-ISIS Colloquium on Human Rights held at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel in March 2009.

9 There have been stirrings of a civil society push to have RtoP normalized in ASEAN, however the relationship between state representatives and civil society groups make it unlikely for them to be credible and, therefore, strong norm-takers for RtoP in the region.