Human Rights in ASEAN: Indonesian and International Perspectives is a collection of 13 essays that not only offers fresh new insights on the different facets of human rights and their protection in ASEAN, but also 'insider' accounts of the development of the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission for Human Rights. These valuable perspectives have never been shared publicly, and offer a view from both the state and non-governmental organisations' (NGO) perspectives. In addition to these valuable perspectives, this book offers a number of significant case studies of how human rights has been implemented, and the challenges it faces in ASEAN in general, and in Indonesia particularly.
Business and human rights has emerged as a distinct field within the corporate governance movement. The endorsement by the United Nations Human Rights Council of a new set of Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights in 2011 reinforces the State’s duty to protect against human rights abuses by third parties, including business; the corporate responsibility to respect human rights; and greater access by victims to effective remedy, both judicial and non-judicial. This book draws on the UN Guiding Principles and recent national plans of action, to provide an overview of relevant developments within the ASEAN region. Bridging theory and practice, the editors have positioned this book at the intersection of human rights risk and its regulation. Chapter authors discuss the implications of key case-studies undertaken across the region and various sectors, with a particular focus on extractive industries, the environment, and infrastructure projects. Topics covered include: due diligence and the role of audits; businesses’ responsibilities to women and children; and the mitigation of human rights risks in the region's emerging markets. The book sheds light on how stakeholders currently approach business and human rights, and explores how the role of ASEAN States, and that of the institution itself, may be strengthened. In doing so, the book identifies critical challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the region in relation to business and human rights. This book will be of excellent use and interest to scholars, practitioners and students of human rights, business and company law, international law, and corporate governance.
Since the passage of the ASEAN Charter in 2008, ASEAN has transformed itself from a loose economic cooperation, into a formal intergovernmental organization designed to create an “ASEAN Community” forged together in three pillar communities – the ASEAN Political-Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community, and tASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. Forty years of pre-Charter ASEAN practices, coupled with over ten years of post-Charter ASEAN practices thus far, has witnessed the conclusion of hundreds of legally binding regional treaties and similarly binding international instruments in all areas of economic, political-security, and socio-cultural concerns for Southeast Asia to achieve ASEAN’s rule of law-based development objective. Pre-Charter and post-Charter ASEAN Law is variably implemented under a hybrid governance system that depends heavily on ASEAN Member State national implementation alongside ASEAN’s evolving regional institutions. The result is not a model of deep integration as in the case of the European Union, but a particular paradigm of horizontal embeddedness of ASEAN Law – in all its norms and operational practices – contingent on the capacities and compliance of national government bureaucracies in Southeast Asia. This edited collection is a concise authoritative volume covering the practical, doctrinal, legal, and policy aspects of the new regime of ASEAN Law and its consequences for realizing rule of law-based development in Southeast Asia’s emerging single market and production base. Drawing together contributions from a range of key thinkers in the field, the editors present the legal and policy-making issues implicated in the practical implementation of Southeast Asia’s single market and its regime for the free movement of goods, services, foreign investment, and cross-border labor. The book also examines the nature of regional law-making under ASEAN before and after the commencement of regional integration in 2015, the nature of ASEAN’s economic regulators, as well as the evolving structure for enforcement and harmonization of “ASEAN Law” through the array of Southeast Asian national courts, arbitral tribunals, and incipient mechanisms for inter-State, intra-regional, and individual-State conflict management and dispute resolution. This book is highly relevant to students, scholars, and policy-makers with an interest in ASEAN Law and regional policy, and to Southeast Asian studies in general.
This book analyses the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a powerful actor in International Relations by examining how the ASEAN community has evolved, looking specifically at its relationship with the EU with regards to human rights. The book adds to important contemporary debates within constructivist theory, shedding light on the need for ‘critical’ constructivism that emphasises language and contestation and what that may entail. On an empirical level, it challenges the idea of an 'EU-centrism,' demonstrating how ASEAN is the major driving force behind its human rights and community aspirations, as well as within the ASEAN-EU relationship. Furthermore, this book engages with the introspection surrounding constructivism by addressing the trouble with 'norms,' and instead unpacking the relationship between ASEAN and the EU to show language power in play. In particular, the book looks at how language, or rather coercive language, helps us ‘see’ contestation in action, something that researchers sympathetic towards the idea of ASEAN’s ‘resistance’ have been unable to show through a focus on norms. Tracing the evolution of the ASEAN community and human rights aspirations in a new light, showing how exactly the EU remains an inspiration, but not a model, and more interestingly how ASEAN demonstrates power in the relationship, the book will be of interest to academics working on Asian Studies, European Studies, International Relations Theory and human rights.
This assessment of progress in Southeast Asia on human rights begins in the wake of the 'Asian values' debate and culminates in the formal regional institutionalisation of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). Chapters examine the arduous negotiation of AICHR, the evolving relationship between ASEAN states' and the international human rights system, and the historical and experiential reasons for hesitancy. The text concludes with a discussion of how the evolving right to development impacts upon AICHR and international human rights in general, and how their preference for economic, social and development rights could help ASEAN states shape the debate.
Human Rights in Asia considers how human rights are viewed and implemented in Asia. It covers not just civil and political rights, but also social, economic and cultural rights. This study discusses the problems arising from the fact that ideas of human rights have evolved in Western liberal democracies and examines how far such values are compatible with Asian values and applicable in Asian contexts. Core chapters on France and the USA provide a benchmark on how human rights have emerged and how they are applied and implemented in a civil law and a common law jurisdiction. These are then followed by twelve chapters on the major countries of East Asia plus India, each of which follows a common template to consider the context of the legal system in each country, black letter law, legal discussions and debates and key current issues concerning human rights in each jurisdiction.
ÔDr Fujita reminds us of the critically important role that human rights can play. Opening up new perspectives, this book is a major and original contribution to the literature.Õ Ð From the foreword by Paul Hunt ÔSanae FujitaÕs book, The World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Human Rights is a significant scholarly contribution to important issues of global governance in our increasingly interconnected world. The book is an excellent treatment of the emergence of participatory rights and accountability in the context of international finance and international organizations more generally. Particularly valuable is the in-depth treatment of transparency and accountability at the Asian Development Bank, an important and often-overlooked institution critical to international governance.Õ Ð David Hunter, American University Washington College of Law, US The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank are two of the worldÕs major institutions conducting development projects. Both banks recognize the importance of transparency, participation and accountability. Responding to criticisms and calls for reform, they have developed policies that are designed to protect these values for people affected by their projects. This original and timely book examines these policies, including those recently revised, through the prism of human rights, and makes suggestions for further improvement. It also analyses the development of the BanksÕ stance to human rights in general. This unique book contains valuable and deeply insightful information drawn from extensive face-to-face interviews with relevant actors, including key personnel from both banks, consultants to the banks and members of civil society organisations. It expands the scope of research/discussion on human rights obligation of International financial institutions that will prove insightful for both academics and students. Practitioners will gain a great deal from the detail given on the standards of transparency, participation and accountability and their applicability to the day-to-day operations of development institutions.
The first work to examine data privacy laws across Asia, covering all 26 countries and separate jurisdictions, and with in-depth analysis of the 14 which have specialised data privacy laws. Professor Greenleaf demonstrates the increasing world-wide significance of data privacy and the international context of the development of national data privacy laws as well as assessing the laws, their powers and their enforcement against international standards. The book also contains a web link to an update to mid-2017.