ASEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: APPOINT INDEPENDENT EXPERTS AND ENSURE PROTECTION

ASEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: APPOINT INDEPENDENT EXPERTS AND ENSURE PROTECTION

The coming 42nd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on 16-17 July 2009 in Thailand will be the momentum for the new human rights regime in ASEAN. On those dates, the High Level Panel (HLP) Members - consist of representatives from 10 member states - will submit the final draft of the Terms of Reference (TOR) on the establishment of the ASEAN human rights body to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers to be adopted as the first regional human rights protection mechanism in Southeast Asia.

The very essence of the human rights protection mechanism is missing in the TOR: the protection mandate and the independence of the body. Civil society envisions that the body will be independent from State with independent human rights experts appointed and working effectively to ensure that all member states in the ASEAN act upon its obligation to promote, protect and fulfill all human rights in line with international human rights norms and standards.

We just have one month to make sure ASEAN Foreign Ministers adopt a TOR that is up to international standards for independent and effective regional human rights mechanism. The petition will be presented on the first week of July 2009. Please sign the petition below and forward email.

To ASEAN Foreign Ministers: We urge you to adopt a TOR of ASEAN human rights body that will ensure the independence of the body by appointing independent human rights experts to sit in the body. The TOR should also ensure that protection mandate should be included, including the mandate to receive complaints of human rights violations and to conduct investigation. The ASEAN human rights body will be ineffective when it can only promote but not protect the rights.

We, undersigned, call upon ALL ASEAN Foreign Ministers to adopt a TOR of ASEAN human rights body that is up to international human rights standards and at par with other regional human rights mechanism in regional human rights mechanism in the Europe, Inter-American and African system, which will promote and protect human rights effectively. A mere window dressing body will only further confirm the lack of political will of ASEAN as a regional bloc to protect the rights of the peoples in the region.