ASEAN's New Human Rights Commission: "Toothless Tiger" or Catalyst for Change?

DEVELOPMENTS

At the fifteen annual summit this past October, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) launched the first regional human rights commission. Called the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), the commission aims to promote regional cooperation on human rights and curb human rights abuses committed against nationals of the ten ASEAN member countries. Though critics have accused the AIHCR of being little more than an attempt to improve ASEAN's image to potential trading partners, some in the international community remain optimistic that the AIHCR may be the first step to a regional human rights protection mechanism strong enough to address atrocities committed by the Burmese junta. However, hopes turned to criticism and even condemnation when five of the member states-- Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Singapore--refused to meet with a pre-selected group of civil society activists, whom the ASEAN countries had already agreed to see. Southeast Asian media excoriated the fledgling institution, calling it a “toothless tiger” that had no intention of making substantive progress on human rights. Is AICHR poised to make substantive progress on regional human rights or is it doomed to remain a "toothless tiger?"

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