Report: Informal Dialogue Between CSO and ASEAN Secretary General, Between CSO and ASEAN CPR and The 1st Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue (JHRD) Final PDF

Indonesias NGO Coalition for International Human Rights Advocacy
(Human Rights Working Group - HRWG), and

the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Indonesias NGO Coalition for
International Human Rights Advocacy
28 30 October 2012, Aryaduta Hotel Jakarta
Organized by Supported by
Report The Informal Dialogue
on Human Rights
Between ASEAN Secretary General,
Committee Permanent Representatives
and Civil Society Organisations
Jakarta, 2830 October 2012
ii
Table Of Content ................................................................................................................ ii
List Of Acronyms ............................................................................................................... iv
Section I: PROjeCt RePORt
Introducton ............................................................................................................. 5
Background .............................................................................................................. 5
Cooperaton of Partners ....................................................................................... 10
Preparaton ............................................................................................................. 10
Overall Programs (28-30 October 2012) ......................................................... 11
Achievement of the Objectves ......................................................................... 12
Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue ......................................................................... 12
3
rd
Informal Dialogue with ASG .......................................................................... 12
ASEAN Community Dialogue .............................................................................. 13
Debriefng ................................................................................................................. 13
Strengths ................................................................................................................... 14
Weaknesses ............................................................................................................. 15
Results, Challenges and Follow-Up .................................................................. 15
Results .................................................................................................................... 15
Challenges .............................................................................................................. 15
Follow-up ............................................................................................................... 16
Section II: SummARy Of DISCuSSION
Day I
Opening remarks .................................................................................................... 17
Session I: Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue ..................................................... 18
Keynote Speech ................................................................................................... 19
Public Discussion : Review of the ASEAN Charter and Its Implicaton
to Regional Human Rights Architecture ......................................................... 22
Session 2: CSOs Meetng with the ASEAN Secretariat General .............. 27
The 3
rd
Informal Dialogue of the ASEAN Secretary-General
with the Representatve of Civil Society on Human Rights ......................... 27
table Of Content
Table of Contents
iii
Day II
Dialogue of the Commitee of Permanent Representatves (CPR)
with Civil Society Organizatons (CSO) and Academics
from ASEAN Member States .............................................................................. 35
The Role of the CPR in ASEAN ............................................................................ 39
Issues and Concerns raised by CSO representatves ...................................... 40
Accreditaton of CSOs .......................................................................................... 43
Closing points: Managing Expectatons ............................................................ 45
Section III: ANNeXeS
Annex #1: Speeches .............................................................................................. 46
Mr. Rizal Sukma .................................................................................................... 46
H.E. Heinz Walker-Nederkoorn .......................................................................... 47
Rafendi Djamin .................................................................................................... 48
Keynote Speech by H.E. Dr. N. Hassan Wirajuda ............................................. 52
Annex #2: News Coverages ................................................................................. 60
Annex #3: Press Release ...................................................................................... 64
Annex #4: Preparatory Meetng ........................................................................ 65
Annex #5: List of Partcipants ............................................................................. 75
Annex #6:
2011s Civil Societys Recommendatons to the ASEAN Secretary General
Civil Societys Recommendatons to the ASEAN Secretary General
on the Promoton and Protecton of Human Rights in ASEAN ..................... 78
Annex #7:
2009s Civil Societys Inputs for the ASEANs Secretary General
Civil Societys Inputs for the Role of the ASEANs Secretary General
to the promoton and protecton of human rights in ASEAN........................ 81
iv Table of Contents
ACWC ASEAN Commissionon the Promoton and Protecton
of the Rights of Women and Children
AHRD ASEAN Human Rights Declaraton
AICHR ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights
AIPR ASEAN Insttute of Peace and Reconciliaton
AMM ASEAN Minister Meetng
ASEAN Associaton of Southeast Asian Natons
ASG ASEAN Secretary General
CEDAW Conventon on the Eliminaton and Discriminaton Against Women
CPR Commitee Permanent Representatves
CRC Conventon on the Rights of the Child
CSIS Centre for Strategic and Internatonal Studies
CSO Civil Society Organizaton
DG Directorate General
FDFA Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Afairs
HRWG Human Rights Working Group
JHRD Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue
KOMNASHAM Indonesian Natonal Commission of Human Rights
MFA Ministry of Foreign Afairs
NGO Non-Governmental Organizaton
OIC Organizaton of Islamic Cooperaton
PR Permanent Representatve
R2P Responsibility to Protect
SG Secretary General
SIDA Swedish Internatonal Development Agency
TOR Terms of Reference
UDHR Universal Declaraton of Human Rights
UN United Natons
List Of Acronyms
5 Table of Contents
Section I: Project Report
Introduction
This report is prepared by Indonesian NGO
Coaliton for Internatonal Human Rights
Advocacy (Human Rights Working Group -
HRWG) for the Informal Dialogue Platorm
on Human Rights between ASEAN Secretary
General (ASG), Commitee Permanent
Representatves (CPR) and the Representatves
of Civil Society Organisatons together with
the Centre for Strategic and Internatonal
Studies. HRWG is grateful with the fnancial
supports from the Swiss Federal Department
of Foreign Afairs (FDFA).
This report consists of three segments: a)
introducton, b) background explaining how
the project came about, previous meetngs
and outcomes, and c) the analysis on
organizing the actvites, from preparaton,
cooperaton with partners, achievement of
the objectves, its strengths and weaknesses,
challenges and an outlook for future
actvites.
Background
The Associaton of Southeast Asian Natons
(ASEAN) is changing. In 2008, The ASEAN
Charter introduced a new brand for the
associaton. The Charter formalises ASEANs
commitment to democracy, human rights,
rule of law, good governance, consttutonal
government and social justce, as well as
redefnes ASEANs common objectves
and principles, structure, mechanisms
and operatons, including an enhanced
role for the ASEAN Secretary General
and establishment of the Commitee of
Permanent Representatves (CPR) to help
ataining ASEAN Communitys goals and
objectves by 2015 by reaching out to the
stakeholders, including civil society.
Jakarta, 2830 October 2012 |
6
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The common problems faced by regional
inter-governmental bodies, including ASEAN,
are:
a) Insttutonal defciencies as a result of the
inability of member states to empower
their organisatons with real authority/
mandate to deal, among other things,
with politcal instability, poverty and
human rights violatons; and
b) The alienaton of citzens from making
their voice heard during politcal
deliberatons.
With the Charter and the Roadmap for the
ASEAN Community, ASEAN is expected to
perform in a more transparent, accountable,
efcient, predictable, responsive and
people-oriented
1
way. Furthermore, the
Chairmans statements of the 19
th
ASEAN
Summit in November 2011 and of the 20
th

ASEAN Summit in April 2012 respectvely
1 ThegoalofcreatinganASEANCharterwasfrst
offciallyacknowledgedinNovember2004in
ASEANs Vientiane Action Program, which stated
that, We recognize the need to strengthen ASEAN
andshallworktowardsthedevelopmentofan
ASEAN Charter. The following the Kuala Lumpur
Declaration on the Establishment of the ASEAN
Charter(Dec2005),ASEANsleaderscommitted
themselves to establishing a Charter to serve as
alegalandinstitutionalframeworkofASEANto
support the realization of its goals and objectives.
TheEPGreport(Dec2006)recommendedthat
the founding principles and objectives of ASEAN
be updated to include respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms. The report also stated
that ASEAN needed to shed its image of being an
elitist organization and become a people-centered
organization with a strengthening of the sense
of ownership and belonging among its people.
The leaders of ASEAN subsequently endorsed
theEPGreportatthe12thASEANSummitin
Cebu,PhilippinesinJanuary2007withTheCebu
Declaration on the Blueprint of the ASEAN Charter,
andsetupaHighLevelTaskForcetobegin
drafting the Charter to be ready for signature at the
13th ASEAN Summit to be held in Singapore in
November2007.
clearly reiterated leaders commitments to
contnue promotng constructve dialogue
and stronger partnership with civil society
2
.
Leaders also noted, that ASEAN Member
States shall actualise the initated concepts
to enhance public awareness and promote
partcipaton of the civil society in the ASEAN
Community building
3
.
Currently, the newly established ASEAN
human rights mechanisms, such as ASEAN
Intergovernmental Commission on Human
Currently, the newly established ASEAN
human rights mechanisms, such as ASEAN
Rights (AICHR) and ASEAN Commission
on the Promoton and Protecton of the
Rights of Women and Children (ACWC),
are facing difcultes in engaging with
civil society due to insttutonal constraint
and capacity. As a mater of fact, leaders
have encouraged AICHR to strengthen
its capacity and to engage with relevant
stakeholders in the region in developing
cooperaton in the feld of human rights.
4
While the Charter recognizes the role of
ASEAN Secretary General (ASG) to facilitate
and monitor progress in the implementaton
of ASEAN agreements and decisions,
(Artcle 11.2b), The AICHRs Terms of
Reference (TOR) Artcle 7.1 adds that ASGs
functon to bring to the atenton of the
AICHR on all relevant human right issues and
to concurrently inform the ASEAN Foreign
Ministers.
2 ChairmansStatementofthe19
th
ASEAN Summit,
Bali,17November2011,Para.104
th
ASEAN Summit,
th
ASEAN Summit,
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Under this mandate, ASG holds an important
positon to positvely contribute to the
ASEANs purpose in promotng a people-
oriented ASEAN in which all sectors of society
are encouraged to partcipate in and beneft
from, in the process of ASEAN integraton
and community building. Therefore, the ASG
can initate and report the implementaton
of this partcular Artcle to the Summit.
In 2011s Informal Dialogue, partcipants
identfed four roles for ASG to play in
promotng and protectng human rights,
such as:
Mainstreaming human rights in all
actvites of ASEAN, which requires
persistent and contnuous eforts,
Ensuring that AICHR takes a supplementary
role in protectng human rights afer the
natonal and internatonal mechanisms,
Ensuring the cohesiveness of ASEANs
policies and measures in protectng
human rights among ASEANs organs,
Ensuring the inclusiveness of peoples
partcipaton and setng the standard of
human rights in ASEAN higher or equal
with the internatonal instruments.
Informal Dialogue between
ASeAN Secretary General and the
Representatives of Civil Society
Organisations on Human Rights
Informal dialogue between ASEAN Secretary
General and the Representatves of Civil
Society Organisatons on Human Rights is
the frst of its kind. This event was initated
in 2009 and repeated in 2011 with the
fnancial support of the Swiss Federal
Department of Foreign Afairs (FDFA).
The Centre for Strategic and Internatonal
Studies (CSIS) organised the frst and second
ASEAN Forum on Human Rights: Informal
Dialogue between the ASEAN Secretariat
and Southeast Asias CSOs, both in Jakarta.
The well-known Indonesian human rights
organisaton Human Rights Working Group
(HRWG) partcipated in the organisaton of
the 2009 platorm as an advisor. In 2011,
HRWG acted as co-organiser.
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The dialogue brought together a number of
representatves of civil societes from all ten
ASEAN member countries. While maintaining
the number of partcipants for the purpose
of efectveness, the partcipaton of civil
society organisaton has increased both
in quantty and quality. It also showed
improvement in term of experiences to
engage with ASEAN ofcials. Twenty fve
representatves of civil society organisatons
from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Burma, Philippines, Singapore Vietnam
and Thailand in 2009 and twenty seven
in 2011, with the additonal from Brunei,
along with representatves from ASEAN
Secretariat atended the workshop atended
the workshops and came up with the Civil
Society Recommendatons on Human Rights
issues for the ASEAN Secretary General.
The partcipants produced a number of
recommendatons specifying their aspiratons
and views on the role of ASG in the promoton
and protecton of human rights. These
recommendatons were delivered directly to
the ASG on the second day of the workshop,
which gave the ASG the opportunity to
interact in an informal and privileged manner
with the CSO representatves atending.
ASEAN Secretary General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan
met the partcipants of the 2009 event, as
he later did again in the 2011 one, for more
than two hours. He listened to, received and
responded their recommendatons and made
himself available for a dedicated discussion
with the CSO representatves atending. Dr.
Surin had brought those recommendatons to
several AICHR meetngs in ASEAN Secretariat
as well as in ASEAN Ministerial Meetngs
(AMM) he was part of.
Some recommendatons from last years
workshop voiced concerns over the drafing
process of the ASEAN Human Rights
Declaraton (AHRD). In partcular, the civil
society representatves called upon AICHR to
ascertain that AHRD will not fall below the
standards set in the Universal Declaraton on
Human Rights (UDHR). This point has been
included in the Terms of Reference of the
Drafing Group for AHRD.
Another recommendaton was about creatng
a full-fedged secretariat for AICHR to improve
its work in promotng and protectng human
rights. The creaton of such secretariat has
been included in the Chairmans Statement
of the 20
th
ASEAN Summit in April 2012,
We also noted the AICHRs requirement for
the support of a dedicated unit within the
ASEAN Secretariat.
5
the 3
rd
Informal Dialogue between
ASeAN Secretary General and the
Representatives of Civil Society
Organisations on Human Rights
The year 2012 marks the fnal term for Dr. Surin
Pitsuwan as ASEAN Secretary General, and
replaced by H.E. Le Luong Minh
6
of Vietnam.
Seizing the momentum to make the event
a regular platorm for dialogue became the
main goal of the year. Simultaneously, AICHR
was in the crucial moment in fnalising the
ASEAN Human Rights Dialogue, and ASEAN
Charter will be reviewed in 2013.
With this as background, the 3
rd
Informal
Dialogue brought diferent formats to the
program by combining the above intenton
th
ASEAN Summit,
PhnomPenh,4April2012,Para.33
6 HeusedtobeVietnamsambassadortotheUnited
NationsbetweenJanuary2004andJune2011.
9
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and contextualised it into of human rights
discussion. The Informal Dialogue consisted
of four events: a) Half day of preparatory
meetng among civil society organisatons
on October 28, b) Half day of Jakarta Human
Rights Dialogue on October 29, c) Half day
of the 3
rd
Informal Dialogue between ASEAN
Secretary General and the Representatves of
Civil Society Organisatons on Human Rights,
and d) Press Conference. The name Jakarta
Human Rights Dialogue was proposed by
ASG Surin Pitsuwan to make the discussion
on human rights in ASEAN reaching out to
the public.
The previous two informal dialogue platorms
have opened an important and democratc
space in debatng ideas, formulatng
proposals as well as exchanging experiences
and perspectves on human rights between
civil society organisaton and the ASEAN
Secretary General (ASG). The persistent of
organizing this platorm has also shown the
changing attude of ASEAN ofcials, as ASG
put (during the 3
rd
Informal Dialogue).
Now I met them [CPR] this morning and I
said, Im sorry I cant be with you too long
because I have to atend human rights
meetng and they dont have anything to
say. It is recognised that this is the space,
and the row. For that, I think you have to
be grateful. And it is my privilege to be
part of the journey with you.
Inspired by the successful eforts on
convening the frst and second dialogues
with the ASG, HRWG and Permanent
Representatve of Indonesia to ASEAN
Ambassador Ngurah explored the possibility
of having the same platorm to bring the
Permanent Representatves of ASEAN to
meet the representatves of civil society
organisatons to discuss the topic of ASEAN
Community building.
Among many tasks, the CPR has the
responsibility to reach out to the civil
society as a way to reinforce the measures
devised to put people in the centre of ASEAN
Community building and to build a responsive
ASEAN as an inter-governmental insttuton.
At the same tme, people engagement can
help conferring legitmacy, accountability,
contribute to policy making and support
the implementaton of services. It is crucial
to put people at the centre of the ASEAN
Community building to move beyond the
traditonal state-civil society which remains
the characteristc of ASEAN.
The 3
rd
Informal Dialogue on Human Rights
was understood to be a perfect opportunity
to make this frst ever meetng between
members of ASEAN civil society and the
members of the CPR happen. The idea as
well, coined in 2009, takes almost four years
to be ripened into an actual event:
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Cooperation of Partners
The main responsibility of implementng the
project resided with HRWG. CSIS remained a
partner in an advisory functon to the project.
The Ofce of Permanent Representatve
of Indonesia to ASEAN was responsible to
mobilise the members of the Commitee
of Permanent Representatves (CPR) and to
arrange the ASEAN Community Dialogue.
Preparation
Several meetngs were held between HRWG,
CSIS and the Embassy of Switzerland, as
well as with the Ofce of the Permanent
Representatve of Indonesia to the ASEAN, as
well as with the ASEAN Secretary General and
his staf prior to the Dialogue to discuss the
objectves of the project, perfect the design
of the events, clarify the additonal platorms
to be introduced as well as to decide what
the respectve roles should be and whom to
invite.
The interacton between CSIS, HRWG and
the Embassy of Switzerland was smooth and
productve. So was the interacton between
HRWG, the Swiss, ASG and The Ofce of the
Permanent Representatve of Indonesia to
the ASEAN. The main challenge was to fnd
suitable opening in the ASEAN Secretary
Generals agenda amid his busy schedule.
Considering is the meetng as the third
event to be organised, ASG Surin Pitsuwan
suggested that the tme has come to make
it public, by having a press release prior the
events and organise a press conference afer
the meetngs. He also suggested to promote
the events to diplomatc community in
Jakarta for ASEAN to gain more supports.
timeline Description
16 Dec 2009 at ASEAN Secretariat,
during the frst anniversary
of ASEAN Charter
Surin Pitsuwan suggested that ASEAN should have a Dialogue
Forum as a venue for stakeholders to discuss the three pillars
with ASEANs ofcials. This statement was refected in ASEC
Press Release, 2009.
24 Nov 2010, CSO Consultaton
with MFA RI for 2011s
chairmanship agenda
The idea of Community Forum with ASEAN stakeholders was
discussed with MFA RI.
8-10 Dec 2010, Indonesias CSO
Preparatory Meetng
for 2011 ASEAN Chairmanship
CSO recommended a Community Dialogue with ASEAN as one of
Indonesias agendas in 2011 Chairmanship.
2011 DG ASEAN of MFA RI picked up the idea to be the benchmark of
the ASEANs 44
th
Anniversary. DG ASEAN wanted to start with
Indonesias Community Dialogue on ASEAN .
7 Jan 2011 Minister Natalegawa in his annual press statement mentoned
the need of having a Community Dialogue.
12 Jan 2011, ASEC Press Release Minister Natalegawa re-mentoned the need in his statement
dated 12 Jan 2011 at the ASEAN Secretariat during the Ceremony
of Handing Over the Chair of CPR from Vietnam to Indonesia.
From 2011 to 2012 PR Indonesia took CPR Members to meet civil society,
media, universites, think tanks, parliament members, local
governments as a way to practce engagement.
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Overall Programs (28-30 October 2012)
28
th
Oct 28
th
Oct 30
th
Oct
14.30-17.00
Preparatory
Meetng
Facilitator:
Ms Yuyun
Wahyuningrum,
HRWG
Venue:
Aryaduta Hotel,
Jakarta
09.00-12.30 (Public Seminar)
JAKARTA HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUE:
Review of ASEAN Charter and its implicaton
to regional human rights architecture
Opening Remarks:
Dr. Rizal Sukma, Executve Director, CSIS
Mr Rafendi Djamin, Executve Director, HRWG
H.E. Heinz Walker-Nederkoorn,
Ambassador of Switzerland to Indonesia
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. N. Hassan Wirajudha,
former Minister of Foreign Afairs, RI
Speakers:
H.E. Rafendi Djamin,
Indonesia Representatve to AICHR
Mr Herman J. Kraf, University of the Philippines
MrMeidyatama Suryodiningrat,
Chief-Editor, The Jakarta Post
Moderator : Ms Lina Alexandra, Researcher, CSIS
Master of Ceremony : Ms Yuyun Wahyuningrum, HRWG
Venue : Aryaduta Hotel, Jakarta
11.30 15.00
(Invitaton only)
COMMUNITY
DIALOGUE between
CPR ASEAN and Civil
Society.
Hosted by the Ofce of
PR Indonesia to ASEAN
Venue: Bebek Bengil
Restaurant, Jakarta
14.00-16.00 (Invitaton only)
THE 3
RD
INFORMAL DIALOGUE between ASEAN Secretary
General and Civil Society on Human Rights
Moderator: Dr. Rizal Sukma, Executve Director, CSIS
16:00-17:00 Press Conference (HRWG & CSIS)
17.00-18.00 De-briefng
Facilitator: Ms Yuyun Wahyuningrum, HRWG
15.00-16.00
Back to the Hotel
16.00-17.30 Debriefng
at the Hotel,
Facilitator: Ms Yuyun
Wahyuningrum, HRWG
Venue: Aryaduta Hotel
19.00-21.00
Group Dinner
19.00-21.00 Group Dinner 18.30-21.00
Receptonat the
Residence of
the Switzerland
Ambassador
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Achievement of the Objectives
Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue
The debates indicated diferent standpoints of
the speakers on the opportunity to review the
ASEAN Charter in 2013. Partcipants agreed
on the importance of further discussion on
the objectves, targets, benchmarks and the
tmeline of a future review. Also discussed
was the pragmatc versus tactcal approach of
AICHR in promotng human rights in ASEAN
and the next steps for ASEAN on human
rights issues.
The speakers invited all partcipants to
respect the process in establishing the
culture of engagement and human rights in
ASEAN. The ASEAN Charter and the ASEAN
Human Rights Declaraton will evolve to meet
the growing pressure from the grassroots in
the ASEAN region and beyond. There was an
agreement that Track 2 and Track 3 contnue
to work together to make use in parallel by
working with individual governments and
the ASEAN network.
More than 65 partcipants from diferent
backgrounds (NGOs, media, universites,
diplomatc community and UN bodies)
atended the seminar. Interacton with the
speakers was fruitul. Although the topic
was new to some of the partcipants, the
seminar has been successful in building the
link between the review of the Charter as
an insttutonal exercise and the noton of
human rights in ASEAN in the future.
3
rd
Informal Dialogue with ASG
Taking the experience from of the earlier
two events into consideraton, the 3
rd

Informal Dialogue mixed non-governmental
organizatons with think tanks. The main
objectve of mixing partcipants was to
balance point of views and to improve the
level of understanding between Track 2
and Track 3. The combinaton was proven
to be efectve in providing refectons and
engaging ASEAN ofcials in a constructve
manner.
The Dialogue held behind closed doors
confrmed the further opening of the space
for the ASG to engage closely with civil
society. The ASG responded very openly to
the questons and suggested the platorm
to be public. That was the reason organizer
asked to distribute a press release two days
before the event and to organize a press
conference afer his meetng with the civil
society. Afer being in the ofce for fve years,
ASG said that dialogue is a new normal in
ASEAN.
There has been an agreement between civil
society and the ASG that the ASEAN Human
Rights Declaraton is stll far from complying
with the internatonal standards. He
therefore appreciated the Dialogue to bridge
the concerns of the Ministries of Foreign
Afairs as he did convey the messages from
civil society during the meetng in New York
in September 2012.
The presence of ASEAN Secretariat staf this
tme was minimal. This limitaton may have
implicatons if a similar platorm is to become
a regular actvity in the future.
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ASEAN Community Dialogue
With the frst ever ASEAN Community
Dialogue, the representatves of CSOs and
CPR broke new ground as they interacted
with each other for the frst tme in their
respectve insttutonal histories.
The innovaton of this interacton was
well recognised from the outset, with CSO
representatves aware of the sensitvity
atached to such interacton, and at the same
tme it marked the emergence of normatve
ground in which the representatves of
member states, such as the CPR, fnd
themselves eager to engage with civil society
groups so as to give substance to the claims
of being people-oriented.
There has been recogniton by the ASEAN
Permanent Representatves (PR) that both
Track 2 and Track 3 have made a lot of
contributon to the ASEAN Community
building project. The luncheon dialogue was
also used by ASEAN PR to clarify the role
of CPR and to discuss issues related to civil
society engagement with ASEAN.
As for civil society, represented by Ms. Diana
Yusdiana from AGENDA (Access to Electons
for Persons with Disabilites in ASEAN), the
meetngs with ASEAN ofcials that she
experienced over the past two days from
meetng the ASEAN Secretary General to
interactng with the CPR had introduced
her to a new network of people and enabled
her to overcome a sense of distance from
ASEAN. She argued that although ASEAN
has a forum for disability related issues, the
associaton lacks of comprehensive strategy
to deal with the problem.
The concern over the issues on sensitvity
shaped the setng and character of
interacton between the CSOs and PRs in two
specifc ways. First, it informed the choice
of having the dialogue over a relaxed and
informal lunch at Bebek Bengil restaurant.
Second, it directly informed the arrangement
of face-to-face interacton for which decided
that those two groups would not sit opposite
to each other but spread evenly around
tables, with two CSO representatves sitng
with one PR. This was to allow both sides
to mingle and make personal acquaintance
over informal conversatons during lunch.
Prior to this luncheon dialogue, Ambassador
Ngurah had organised a number of interacton
actvites with diferent stakeholders of
ASEAN to build the practce of engagement
in CPR. This afrms the strategic approach
workable in ASEAN to build a mechanism by
practce. This approach provides tme for key
players to feel comfortable to take further
steps.
Debriefng
Debriefng was organized every tme the
meetng completed with the objectve of
getng partcipants views and refecton
on the said actvity in order to improve the
quality of future dialogues. Followings are
the summary of the debriefng:
According to the importance of the
degree of CSOs engagement with some
ofcial levels of ASEAN, especially with
those working on human rights bodies,
the Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue,
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the Informal Meetng with ASG and the
Informal Dialogue between ASEAN CPR
and CSO, partcipants had recommended
this event to be held annually.
Partcipants expressed their appreciaton
to the series of actvites as they contnue
to renew their commitment to dialogue
with the ASEAN human rights systems in
order to strengthen them.
JHRD has to be a forum that widens
spaces for dialogue and discusses specifc
issues on human rights.
Partcipants regreted the unequal tme
allocaton among speakers during the
Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue.
Duraton to have dialogue with ASG was
considered too limited as ASG was in a
rush to the airport.
Partcipants gave a positve impression to
the ASG at the end of his term, especially
when he began to place the foundaton for
a commitment of creatng communicaton
space between ASEAN bodies and civil
society.
All partcipants saw the importance
of engaging with CPRs especially on
promotng human rights.
Partcipants agreed among themselves
about the importance of making the
CPRs more comfortable to have informal
dialogue with civil society. However,
it is necessary to contnue building
trust among civil society and other
stakeholders of ASEAN.
Strengths
1. Informal Dialogue with ASG on Human
Rights has generated further innovatve
ideas in building democratc engagement
between ASEAN ofcials and the civil
society. It has also generated the idea to
create a discussion on emerging human
rights issues in ASEAN by bringing
respected speakers from the region.
2. Informal Dialogue with ASG on Human
Rights has also emerged as a new
normatve ground in ASEAN of which
the series of dialogues have shown
the eagerness of the representatves
of member states, such as the CPR, to
engage with civil society groups so as to
give substance to the claims of being the
people-oriented ASEAN.
3. Signifcant support and cooperaton from
the partcipants to see the dialogue as a
long process rather than a one-of event
in building the practce of engagement.
4. Commitment from ASEAN CPR to
contnue the dialogue in the future
in more systematc and substantve
discussion.
5. Support and cooperaton from
Ambassador of Switzerland in ensuring
the space in ASGs agenda, coordinatng
the discussion among the organisers,
holding diplomatc recepton afer the
series of dialogue, and being fexible
with a number of changes in between
the events.
6. Signifcant appreciaton coming from
partcipants, PR ASEAN as well as
diplomatc community in Jakarta.
7. Actve interacton and frank discussion
between partcipants and ASEAN
ofcials that showed greater freedom
15
Table of Contents
and security in expressing thoughts and
aspiraton during the series of dialogue.
8. The report and clarifcaton made by ASG,
AICHR Representatves and the former
Foreign Minister of Indonesia in explaining
the history of establishing AICHR and CPR
render the dialogue platorms that serve
as venues for accountability exercise, i.e.
ASG reported to the partcipants that he
read all leters sent to him concerning
AHRD and had conveyed them to the
atenton of AMM. This practce refects
his mandate on human rights according
to TOR Artcle 7.1.
9. The Ofce of PR Indonesia to ASEAN
shared the fnancial burden for the
foods in ASEAN Community Dialogue,
refectng the greater recogniton on the
importance of the platorms.
10. Obtaining additonal fnancial support
from Sida to jointly fund the events with
Swiss Federal Department of Foreign
Afairs.
11. Overall tme management is fne in the
series of back-to-back dialogue.
12. Fruitul cooperaton between HRWG,
CSIS, the Embassy of Switzerland and the
Ofce of PR Indonesia to ASEAN during
the conceptualisaton, planning and
organising phase.
Weaknesses
1. Lack of partcipaton from AICHR
Representatves due to short notce
invitaton.
2. While partcipants do not have issues of
not producing outcome document from
the dialogues, they wanted to have the
agreed talking points to address some of
the issues with ASEAN ofcials.
3. Partcipants also expressed that the
Preparatory Meetng sessions should be
more substantve in order to come up
with talking points, rather than to solely
prepare partcipants on technical maters
related to the dialogue.
Results, Challenges and Follow-Up
Results
1. Spaces to engage with ASEAN ofcials are
widening and gradually becoming public.
2. Civil society has gained knowledge and
experiences in engaging with ASEAN,
its limitaton, structures and ways of
working.
3. ASEAN Ofcials understood the dynamism
of civil society in the region.
4. Renewal Commitment from civil society
and think tanks to engage with ofcial
process in ASEAN.
5. Commitment from ASEAN PR to have
similar practce of dialogue to be
conducted regularly in the future with
assigned topic of discussion.
Challenges
1. Despite of willingness to cooperate
shown by all partcipants and organisers
to partcipate in the ASEAN Community
Dialogue, there was a request from PR
Cambodia to restrict the number of
partcipants allowed to join the Dialogue
to only one partcipant per country. In
fact, the organisers had arranged two
partcipants per country. The organiser
also received the request from PR
Vietnam and Singapore to exclude certain
names as the partcipants to the Dialogue.
Afer negotatng, PR Singapore was
16
Table of Contents
more relaxed with the request and the
organiser had to follow PR Cambodias
request, considering the country was the
chair of ASEAN.
2. Getng the commitment of the new
ASEAN Secretary General remains the
challenge of the next actvity. There is a
need for contacts to be sought through
diplomatc channels by the CPR ASEAN as
well as by the Embassy of Switzerland. At
the same tme, both CSIS and HRWG can
request a meetng to specifcally discuss
the contnuaton of dialogue with the
new ASG.
Follow-up
Press releases, media coverage, speeches
and pictures taken during the dialogue
have been shared in e-group: ASEANCats@
googlegroups.com as a way to distribute the
informaton and to promote the actvites in
order to be known by wider CSOs engaging
in human rights issues in the region.
The cooperaton with CSIS, Embassy of
Switzerland and Ofce of PR Indonesia to
ASEAN has been positve, meaningful and
was a venue for mutual learning itself.
HRWG regards the actvity contributed to
its overall fve year strategy of its ASEAN
Advocacy in ensuring that a) ASEAN Human
Rights Systems are accessible, independent,
efectve and responsive, b) Dialogue and
Popular Partcipaton in ASEAN are improved,
c) Civil Society Network is strengthened, and
d) ASEANs accountability to human rights is
enhanced.
It is hoped that this exercise contnues in the
future to raise the bar on ways of civil society
engagement in ASEAN on human rights,
and fnally to be insttutonalised in ASEAN
structures, budget and practce.
During the preparaton of the ASEAN
Community Dialogue, a process of transferring
the initatves ownership took place, from
HRWG/CSIS to the Ofce of PR Indonesia
to ASEAN and eventually to the CPR as an
insttuton, producing a positve outcome to
this project. It is expected that this kind of
ownership transfer done in taking over the
Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue (JHRD).
AICHR Representatve of Indonesia
Ambassador Rafendi Djamin has agreed
to take the ownership of JHRD to be his
initatve that can be developed to be an
annual strategic human rights dialogue
in ASEAN involving decision makers from
ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN member states
dealing with human rights, academia, media
as well as civil society, partcularly human
rights organizaton and organizaton of
victms and/or families of victms of human
rights violatons.
For future arrangement of similar actvity
in 2013, it was agreed that CSIS will take
the leading role as the host with HRWG as
co-organiser. Ms. Yuyun Wahyuningrum
will work as a consultant in preparing the
proposal, dealing with diferent actors for the
events, managing the actvity and drafing
the fnal narratve report.
Report of The Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue

DAy I
17 Table of Contents
Opening remarks
The frst day was started by the Welcome Remarks from the representatves
of Human Rights Working Group (HRWG), The Centre for Strategic and
Internatonal Studies (CSIS) and Embassy of Switzerland.
Rizal Sukma, on behalf of CSIS expressed his grattude to the actve
collaboraton between HRWG, CSIS and Embassy of Switzerland.
Ambassador of Switzerland for Indonesia H.E. Heinz Walker-Nederkoorn
highlighted the evoluton of the small informal dialogue, which was started
in 2009 and have transformed into a proud public conference today.
He contnued that Switzerland remains commited to contribute to the
promoton and protecton of human rights worldwide, including in ASEAN.
Representng Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) Indonesia, Rafendi
Djamin expected that the Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue could be developed
to be an annual strategic human rights dialogue in ASEAN that will involve
decision makers from ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN member states dealing
with human rights, academia, media and civil society partcularly human
rights organizaton and organizaton of victms and/or families of victms of
human rights violatons. Addressing the theme of discussion, Rafendi argued
that the review of the Charter can be used to strengthen and weaken human
rights body simultaneously. He further said, I believe that all of us here
want to see the review of the ASEAN Charter as a way and opportunity to
strengthen it.
Section II: Summary Of Discussion
DAy I
SESSION 1:
DAy I
KEYNOTE SPEECH
H.E. Dr. N. Hassan Wirajudha
former Minister of Foreign Afairs
of Indonesia
H.E. Dr N. Hassan Wirajudha, former Minister
of Foreign Afairs of Indonesia delivered the
keynote speech to set the tone of the Jakarta
Human Rights Dialogue while Mr. Rizal Sukma
moderated the session.
Mr. Wirajudha detailed the historical
background of the architecture of human
rights in ASEAN. He stated that civil
societys roles took an important part on
startng discourse in terms of promoton
and protecton of human rights in ASEAN.
Philippines is the frst country in the
region that established a commission on
human rights and sponsored the frst Asia
Pacifc Workshop on Human Rights (1990).
Indonesia followed when President Soeharto
ofcially addressed the demand promoton
and protecton of human rights (1991), and
Indonesia joined the UN Commission on
Human Rights. The drafing of the ASEAN
Charter, partcularly on provision enabling
an ASEAN human rights body, said Wirajuda,
was revisited following an earlier atempt to
establish an ASEAN human rights mechanism
that had been sidelined for 14 years since
1993.
He further addressed four major obstacles
faced by the development of politcal and
human rights culture in ASEAN, namely a)
lack of democracy, b) imbalance development
concepts and the Asian Tigers, c) excessive
noton of non-interference in domestc
afairs, and d) Asian values.
Wirajuda argued that although the promoton
of democracy and human rights is now an
ofcial agenda as mandated by the ASEAN
Charter, its translaton to ASEAN Blueprint on
Politcal and Security Community is relatvely
weak compared to ASEAN Blueprint on
Economic Community. Despite the politcal
and legal commitments stpulated in artcle
14 of the ASEAN Charter, the mandate of
AICHR was half-hearted and weak as well.
DAy I
Regarding the upcoming agenda of signing
the ASEAN Human Rights Declaraton
(AHRD) by ASEAN leaders, he argued that
postponing the adopton would serve beter
situaton as it remained below internatonal
standards. He said that untl the margin
of diferences adheres to ASEAN member
countries on politcal and human rights
culture and their internatonal standards,
ASEAN would take its lowest denominator to
reach consensus among members.
Having said that, Wirajuda suggested that
the review of ASEAN Charter should not be
taken seriously as it might bring bad impacts
on human rights in the region. He concluded,
At this stage I would not recommend a
review of the ASEAN Charter with a view
to amend it. Amending the Charter every
tme we encounter problems is too risky.
It is possible because it is man-made, but I
would say that it is not politcally feasible at
this stage.
Wirajuda believed that ASEAN has many
things to do. The frst and foremost is to
eliminate the obstacles he mentoned earlier
and to keep reminding ASEAN government
that by 2014, the TOR for AICHR needs to be
reviewed and replaced with a new one since
it has been promised in 2009. Rather than
reviewing the Charter, Wirajuda said that it
would be beter for AICHR to review its TOR
and the Blueprint of ASEANs politcal and
security community which will signifcantly
impact the way of promoton and protecton
of ASEAN human rights implemented and
accelerated beyond 2015.
To a partcipants queston regarding the
perfect tme to adopt the ASEAN Human
Rights Declaraton (AHRD), Mr. Wirajuda
responded,
Of course its much easier to adopt
a declaraton which is lower, but for
Indonesia, certainly it is not something
that we should be part of. So, thats why
to me, it is more practcal for AICHR to
deal with humans wrong because all the
human rights are there already, but the
human wrongs is happening in the ASEAN
countries and what the AICHR does?
AICHR remained silent, even on the issue,
which has become a global concern,
internatonal concern. This is ironical.
That is why, when the issue in TOR was
discussed, I said, Indonesia cannot be
part of the consensus, which is to adopt
a standard, which is even lower than our
own. Not to menton Komnas HAM of
DAy I
2003 which was much improved version
during the tme of Reformasi, but even
Komnas HAM under military dominated
government passed a stronger mandate
and the current mandate of AICHR.
Answering the queston about R2P, Wirajuda
remained taking the pessimistc positon
as long as the statc understanding of the
principle of non-interference in the domestc
afairs available. He challenged by using
these provocatve words, I simply dont
understand as we entered the beginning of
21st century, you are all stll allergic to the
words used on the noton of on the words
of democracy and human rights. And that is
happening today, stll happening today.
Rafendi Djamin claimed that in the last three
years, what he had been trying to struggle
was to get the highest common denominator
and not the lowest common denominator like
Wirajuda had mentoned. And apparently as
a mater of fact this highest thing is stll low
on the eyes of Pak Hassan, was actually now
sitng outside the table of negotaton, said
Rafendi.
On the area of AHRD debate, Rafendi had
diferent positon with that of Wirajuda.
He said that the whole context including
the ewuh pakewuh culture had to be
understood in the context of ASEAN. Rafend
explained,
Of course we know that this is something
that we cant really accept and then you
have the noton of course well having in
the world even you got it on Universal
Declaraton, within ASEAN context
nothing can be perfect. And anyway this
is a declaraton. The struggle is when we
are going to have a conventon, and then
there is no compromise can be taken
when it is going to lower the internatonal
standards.
He contnued that Universal Declaraton on
Human Rights (UDHR), Vienna Declaraton
and Programme of Actons, CEDAW and CRC
should be the basis of negotaton of any
declaraton coming out from ASEAN.

DAy I
Public Discussion
Review of the ASEAN Charter and Its Implicaton
to Regional Human Rights Architecture
Moderator challenged the speakers to
answer the questons on whether the review
of the Charter will empower ASEAN and its
related body especially those working under
the mandate of human rights feld to protect
the human rights in the region efectvely.
As well, would the review of the charter
next year be able to elevate and response
those untouchable issues in order to beter
promote and protect human rights?
Representng AICHR Indonesia, Rafendi
Djamin explained that the review of the
ASEAN Charter could impact the end product
of the TOR AICHR review. Rafendi said that
if the preamble, purposes and principles of
the ASEAN Charter is changed, then it will
defnitely afect TOR AICHR. ASEAN has the
preamble, in the purpose (Artcle 1) and in
The Open Discussion on Review of the
ASEAN Charter and its implicaton to regional
Human Rights Architecture invited three
speakers: Herman J. Kraf, lecture from
University of Philippines, Mr. Meidyatama
Suryodiningrat, Editor-in-Chief of The Jakarta
Post, and Mr. Rafendi Djamin, the Indonesian
Representatve to AICHR. Ms. Lina Alexandra
of CSIS served as the moderator.
Lina said that the idea of having this seminar
was to discuss the upcoming process of
reviewing the Charter, partcularly to see
to what extent this process will bring more
hopes for ASEAN. The session highlighted
how this review of the charter will bring
signifcant implicaton to the promoton and
more importantly to the protecton of human
rights in the region.
DAy I
DAy I
the principles. The preamble is the reason for
the existence of ASEAN and the principles,
which become the ground for principle on
how this organizaton will work in the term
of human rights. Rafendi added,
I would say as it is now, it should not be
changed. I think you really have to look
at it in the text. In the preamble, as I
said also in the beginning, democracy,
rule of law, good governance, respect for
human rights. So these are the sacred
words in the review that cannot be then
deleted or even changed into anything,
it should always be there. It becomes a
very strong basis on the preamble. On the
purposes, to strengthen the democracy,
enhance good governance. At the level
of purposes, theres a noton of good
governance. So next to rule of law and
good governance become one thing that
is actually interrelated and cannot be then
separated both in the preamble and the
purposes; to promote and protect human
rights and fundamental freedoms.
Rafendi argued that the non-interference
principle has been implemented in the statc
way in ASEAN, which make a big problem in
terms of promotng and protectng human
rights. He contnued that the relaton of non-
interference principle with the in balance
of the promoton and protecton of human
rights had been difcult to maintain.
The protecton mandate confned in the TOR
AICHR is only to obtain informaton from
ASEAN Member States, Artcle 4.19. Rafendi
said, What we have there is only obtaining
informaton. Obtaining informaton can be
seen as an explicit role of protecton. Consult
with natonal, regional, and internatonal
insttutons and enttes concerned with
human rights protecton and promoton. This
includes with civil society in the region. On
the promotonal side, we know in the mater
of educaton, in the mater of standard
setng, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaraton
is part of the standard setng.
Rafendi also put a serious meaning on
consultaton as the basis of decision
making process to reach a consensus since
ASEAN does not have votng mechanism.
Everything is equal and ASEAN believes
that there should not be any super body of
ASEAN among member states. He argued
that consensus does not mean enforcing
ones will or positon to another. Consensus
means gaining ownership. Consensus has
positve elements as well. Afer reaching a
consensus, an ownership gained. By gaining
an ownership, guaranty obtained that the
decision will be implemented by partes
involved in the consensus. Those are the
positve maters of consensus.
DAy I
Rafendi agreed with the four challenges
Wirajuda has mentoned: a) lack of
democracy, b) imbalance development
concepts and the Asian Tigers, c) excessive
noton of non-interference in domestc
afairs, and d) Asian values. He stated that
within the context of lack of democracy in
ASEAN, a human rights insttuton like AICHR
is considered as a politcal negotaton body
instead of a human rights mechanism as its
supposed functon.
Herman J. Kraf explored the human rights
architecture in ASEAN and the debate
regarding the review of ASEAN Charter. He
perceived that the discourse on human rights
in ASEAN brings a philosophical queston
about cultural relatvism versus universalism.
Further Herman argued that the discourse
on insttutonalism had been delivered
clearly by Rafendi. He invited partcipants to
talk about architecture as something beyond
formal insttuton.
Even as Pak Wirajuda have talked about the
idea of contnuing issue regarding ASEAN
values, to what extent this issue of cultural
relatvism is no longer the main point in
terms of the discourse on human rights?
asked Herman. He elaborated that the term
of architecture, actually an unusual concept,
and how it can be applied to the regional
human rights discourse. He talked basically
about the insttuton but more importantly
on the engagement with the civil society
in the regional human rights architecture,
which has been very much overlooked to
date.
He mentoned intergovernmentalism and
supernatonalism debates related to the
mater and underlined that the review of the
charter itself is very important, especially
to create a clear target or the benchmark
to improve the work of ASEAN. He listed
several points related to the obligaton of
implementaton of the charter, the decision
making process and non-interference
principles implementaton which should
not restrain the implementatons of human
rights in the region and dispute setlement
mechanism.
According to Herman, the main issue is in
fact the queston on how does human rights
discussion return to the super natonalism
in the inter-governmentalism, a queston of
non-interventon. A super natonal body will
indeed promote a lot more interventon on
regional mechanism, contrary to the one
championing the idea of sovereignty. He
added,
DAy I
Hence, you have that the discourse
over universal human rights versus non-
interventon. And then of course the
queston of inviolability of human rights
means to say you are talking about the
extent to which the state can actually say
that certain rights should be emphasized
because they become contradictve with
certain situaton like natonal security.
Herman agreed with Rafendi that the review
of the charter itself might actually have
implicaton for human rights in the region.
Herman perceived the review as important.
He disagreed with Wirajuda, Look, the
problem here is that the review is actually
mandated by the charter and because it is
mandated, it is actually something that has
to be pushed forward. Why is that? The
moment you start mocking up with points
in the charter that were agreed upon, it
becomes easy to actually ignore formal
agreement in that context. Stcking to those
agreements actually makes it important
for ASEAN or makes ASEAN much more
aware of its obligaton in terms of trying to
push through with those points. But this is
where the points were made by Pak Rafendi
become important. Those agreements only
make sense to the extent that we do have
benchmark. That there are clear targets that
need to be achieved. And there are a number
of targets here, were not just talking about
the review, were talking about 2015 as
well.
In 2015, ASEAN is planning to become
one community.The achievement and
establishment of ASEAN unity itself in fact
should include signifcant advances as far as
the insttuton of mechanism within ASEAN.
He said,
The review is something that has to
be done in the context of the charter
itself but also in terms of the provision
in the charter actually afect or have
consequences in the implementaton
for the human rights in the region, so in
that sense the extent of obligaton as far
as the ASEAN agreements are concerned
becomes an important factor.
Meidiyatama Suryodiningrat stated that the
session has contributed to the view of struggle
to improve human rights mechanism in this
region. He said, The colour of human rights
mechanism (in ASEAN) is not black or white,
but it is brown as it is seen by the atre of all
the speakers today, including myself.
He reminded partcipants the meaning of
evolutonary works of human rights in this
region. He further explained,
DAy I
I say this with an understanding that
internatonal law and standards including
in the feld of human rights contnue
to expand with tme as cultural norms
evolved. New demands would be made
for legal instrument to keep up with the
development. For example two decades
ago, discussion on sexual orientaton
would not part of the mainstream of the
debate as they are now. On the other
hand today, people are only beginning to
talk about the responsibility of business
practces to respect certain standards
of human rights. The same way as
more progress we are talking about the
responsibility to protect. Now I have no
doubts that these will be embryos for
standards in the future and will become
a norm from two decades from now or
even less. Inevitably, the ASEAN Charter
and the ASEAN Human Rights Declaraton
will evolve to meet the growing roots
pressure which will be put by many of you
including those in this room.
Meidyatama believed in process. He
seconded Ambassador Walker-Nederkoorn
who said that the respect comes intently,
not enforced from outside. It is up to us to
contnue setng the bar high, irrespectve of
the lethargy of government.
He highlighted the importance of the
enduring engagement process. It is my
convicton rather than crying over spilled ink
on the rights declaraton and the charter, it
is far more benefcial for Track 2 and Track
3 to work together to concede this parallel
alternatve by working with individual
government and ASEAN network which we
are all part of. I think its up to us not to
suspend our disbelief thinking what should
be but looking at what it is and what may
become.
3
rd
with the Representative of Civil Society on Human Rights
DAy I
SESSION 2:
CSOs Meeting with the ASEAN Secretariat General
The 3
rd
Informal Dialogue of the ASEAN
Secretary-General with the Representatve
of Civil Society on Human Rights
(Transcribed from Dr Surins speech)
3
rd
DAy I
I dont know which modality I would follow,
Pak Hassan or Pak Rafendi? I guess the best
forward is to be myself and that is to be
direct as I can and to be as diplomatc as I
have to be.
Let me just say that I value this dialogue
between the SG of ASEAN and civil society
working on the issue of human rights very
much. The only other forum that would
this kind designaton is the annual dialogue
between SG of ASEAN and the Federaton
of Japanese Chambers of Commerce in
ASEAN, the other spectrum, private sector.
The background of this, the Ambassador
knows well, was my appeal to our friends,
our dialogue partners and our potental
development partners like Switzerland, that
there are issues within ASEAN on ASEAN
agenda that needs to be more understood
beter disseminated and creatng a coaliton
of the willing who agree and who want to
work some of these issues together and to
move the agenda forward within the process,
within the landscape of ASEAN. And this is
only one of it.
I think if we look back from the very beginning
early 1900. I believe in 1992, the Foreign
Ministers agreed to establish or to endorse
establishment of working group on human
rights. And I remember I was one of the
ASEAN ministers at the ASEAN Ministerial
Meetng who would be open for this
engagement, many others were reluctant.
And I have to commend your predecessors
those who work in this agenda within that
working group designaton. Pak Marzuki was
very very commited and very very passion
and very much focused, never let the ball fall.
And there are others who may come and go
within the ASEAN member states. You have,
we have promoted the agenda the ASEAN
human rights from a marginal issue.
Issues that member states used to think that
these are of low priority. We dont need
to pay much atenton to it; we have other
priorites to an issue that is very much high
on the agenda front centre and very very
focused among all of us. I dont think we can
dismiss that achievement and I dont claim it
for myself and I certainly dont think that it
is anybodys credit. It is a collectve work of
all of us to carry this issue forward up untl
where we are.
The leaders agreed to establish, frst of all,
its in the charter and then the leader agreed
that it has to be established and it is in the
politcal security work plan or blueprints.
And then it is established and a lot of people
are not very happy about it. It is not a
perfect insttuton. Every tme it talks about
protecton, it also talks about promoton.
It could not give absolute guarantee for
protecton and it doesnt give much room
for protecton of individual cases. So form
your perspectve, its probably the real of
abstracton, not quite concrete not quite solid
and not quite clear delineaton of the role
of the human rights mechanism or human
rights intergovernmental commission.
I had had a debate since before I came into
this. I said when they were drafing it, I said
yes it could be intergovernmental, but I hope
the individuals who are nominated will be
on their own, will have their own space,
will be free of any government instructons
or any government control. I was dreaming.
But those who were drafing the charter
3
rd
DAy I
and the human rights TOR frst were saying
if it is an intergovernmental commission if
it is nominated by government, it cannot be
independent, it cannot be free, it has to have
that linkage.
But within that limitaton some member
states have been able to select and to
send individual through open recruitment.
Another words not a government ofcial, not
individuals that government would approve,
but let it be an open process recruitng
someone relevant, commited, passionate
about the issue. Im not going to menton
countries, but I want to say that within the
limitatons, some member states who have
made, have created a process that would
guarantee members of that commission,
the intergovernmental but stll recruited
or identfed, or selected from an open
process.
So we are where we are.
I think you have to look at it against that
background of hesitaton, background of
uncertainty and in some cases background
of sceptcism. That this would serve member
states of ASEAN well in our social politcal
and economic progress, but we have it.
And we are now working very slowly, very
inclusively and very patently on some of the
major instruments that we want to establish
in order to make sure that this agenda is
addressed and addressed well at the level
that is comfortable, that is acceptable, that
is a product of consensus and compromise.
Right now it is that declaraton, a regional
declaraton. That is a vocal point of
contenton, Yuyun and others. That it is
not up to the standard, that it is below the
mark, and that it is not quite what we should
expect. We want more that from ASEAN.
3
rd
DAy I
I understand the sentment, I understand the
feeling very very well, but I also appreciate,
am I speaking as the SG or? But I also
appreciate the constraint, the reluctant and
thesceptcismthat they have. Let me put
this observaton for you. Any country, any
government that is stll involved in state
building, state constructon, power and
legitmacy of the state is not fully established.
Throughout its territory, in every area and
in every feld will always feel jealous of its
power and its based and its sovereignty. This
is true in any undertaking in internatonal
arena. This is true about attude toward
new concept like human security. This is true
about the new concept like Dr. Praneehas
worked on the responsibility to protect. It
is going to diminish, it is going to afect, it
is going to make an advanced in road to the
absolute power of the state.
And ASEAN member are in that process, a lot
of it, a lot of us, either in the process of state
building or in the process of making sure that
the power the state has acquired is saved, is
secure, and will not be challenged. In the
face of tension, confrontaton, negotaton
with the rest of the world, internatonal
community, they want to make sure that we
are confdent and certain about what we are
trying to do.
I once described the foreign policy of Malaysia
and Indonesia as a foreign policy of deviance
in my lecture to the ofcials here in Foreign
Ministry in front of Pak Ali. And he asked me,
Where did you get that idea? How did you
come up with that phrase? I said, Well two
of you are leading in the third world, two of
you are leading in the group of 66. And you
have staked your claim of this leadership
based on your own struggle against your
own colonial background. You had to devise
something to come into being.
And he said what are some the others
and I said Thailand. Its a foreign policy
of accommodaton; just accommodate
everything, willing to absorb, willing to play,
willing to go along, willing to adapt, willing
to compromise because Thailand doesnt
have anything to prove to itself. So it became
a foreign policy of trying to accommodate
confictng interest outside. The rest of the
ASEAN are somewhere in between, either
policy of deviance or policy of trying to pick
and choose to accommodate issues that they
are comfortable with, that they think they
will beneft from.
So the overall result of this landscape is
frst to be sceptcal of anything universal.
We have our own norms, we have our own
experience, we have our own way to move
forward, later on its the ASEAN way. The very
creaton of ASEAN is to create its small forum
and state for ourselves that we dont lose
3
rd
DAy I
our own identtes. ASEAN in 1967, it is ten
eleven years afer 56 Bandung Conference.
When the major personalites of the third
world came together and the ASEAN
member states leaders felt it was too big for
us. We will lose our identty. So we call it this
thing called ASEAN. Thats the background of
a lot of hesitaton, restraint but claimed to
be unique, diferent. We have our own way,
ASEAN way. Thats the background of it.
Some countries are more advanced that
some others. And I would say that some
personalites in some countries are even
more advanced than some in the same
county depending on the training, depending
on the experiences, depending on the
ideological commitment and experiences
that they have gone through educaton.
Mine has always been trying to push the
envelope, pragmatc, but always try to push
the parameter. You remember when all the
ASEAN were constructve engagement, well
the experiences of the frst crisis told me
as a Foreign Minister of Thailand that we
have nothing to bark in the world because
we were down on our knees because of the
fnancial crisis.
The only thing that Thailand hadat that tme
was democracy and human rights. And it
is for the frst tme that human rights and
democracy became part of the foreign policy.
And it was that inspiraton that led me to talk
and think about that fexible engagement.
And Pak Ali said that I know where you
3
rd
DAy I
came from, but it sounds too aggressive. Let
us call it, he said an enhanced engagement
between us and among us. the fexible
engagement was meant just, you know, if
some countries have some problems with
democracy and human rights, dont expect
a country like Thailand to go out and defend
you. Because thats the only thing we have,
Ambassador, human rights and democracy at
that tme. Because it was no longer atractve
economically to invest to trade nothing,
everything failed. Because you were saying
let them fail.
Now you are saying some companies are
too big to fail. You are saying maintain
your surplus budget, you were telling us
keep the interest high. All the prescripton
that you gave to us, not you, IMF, are now
reversed what you are dealing with the US.
There was no bargaining power. I was trying
to push the envelope. And indeed we won
support from the internatonal community.
But that created problem within the ASEAN
community. So coming from that background
with my appreciaton of our depth of history,
I know what is possible and I know what the
risk is. I was willing to take some risk, but
not too much risk. And that is pushing the
envelope, trying to expand the parameter,
trying to create the space for all this kind of
issue to be able to be on the agenda. And
here we are. So I appreciate this dialogue.
We have made progress and I think we have
a long distance to go, but it doesnt mean we
have not achieved anything. I have seen the
communicaton between the civil society and
the ASEAN Foreign Minister just during the
meetng in New York. A lot of these issues
are below standard.
You can subsume human rights to the right
society or the law or the morality or the
peace of society. Human rights have to be
absolute thats one mission, one standard.
But look at that again the background of
what I have described to you from the very
beginning, you would appreciate that we
have come also a long distance and we have
a long distance to cover. But at least we have
look at it and that progression rather than
statc, no achievement, unacceptable. Were
not moving anywhere. Its not true. I think
we have to accept that there is dynamic
within these human rights community within
ASEAN. And I think we have to work together
in order to advance this further. And I think I
believe in the momentum of the democracy
and human rights. Once you begin to talk
democracy and human rights, the agenda
will have a life of its own and you cant stop
it. Whether it is in Myanmar or Cambodia
or anywhere, you can always appeal to the
sacred document that they have commited
in your name that these are the things that
we will do together. And I will relate to you.
3
rd
DAy I
I think I have done that before. But one more
tme since this is my last tme with you. Hillary
came to me in early 2009 and asked me,
Do I have that green book, the charter? Oh
okay, you show it. But Ill tell the story. How
much do you mean Mr. Secretary General to
implement this green book of yours?
And I know exactly why she phrased the
queston that way. Because the general
percepton of ASEAN is we come to the
meetng, we come in, we sign, we go back
home, we forget. But this is a contractual,
this is the sacred internatonal treaty among
us, the positve of the UN, ourselves, all of
you and the internatonal community. All
stakeholder players can call us against that
piece of paper.
So I must gather my courage and I said
Madam Secretary, we aspired to make a
living document, much like your Declaraton
of Independence, and much like your
consttuton. When they were issued, they
were inspiratonal. But they were sacred
principles in there that every generaton of
your people, whether its Lincoln, its Martn
Luther King, whether its the great society
during the tme of Mr. Johnson, Mr. Kennedy,
every successive generaton of American
people try to appeal to this document. And
try to expand their space, to expand their
freedom, try to pursue, in the pursuit of
happiness in the framework of consttuton
and the Declaraton of Independence.
I said that when Thomas Jeferson ended that
famous phrase All men are created equal
endowed with certain inalienable rights to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.I
said He didnt mean the Indians, he didnt
include the black slaves, he didnt even
include white men without propriety.And
I said, He didnt even include woman. But
now Mr. Obama in the White House, you
are Secretary of States. Every successive
of generaton in America hold on to that
document.
We want our people to hold on to this
document and you can help. Thats what you
are doing. Youre trying to make true whatever
its being said there. We are commited to the
principles of democracy and human rights.
And theres a space for you. WhenI fnished
my presentaton, she said, Yes, Professor,
andchanged the subject.
My message is it cant be done
the frst time around; my message is
if we are committed together, we will
get there together. We have made
the way, other generation behind
will have to live with that document.
So if you look at it this way, you wont
be hopeless. If you look at it this way,
youll continue to work and to be
inspired, that at least they are rules
and principles and doctrines in there
that we are together into a larger
space for our future generation.
And that is what Ive been trying
to do in the past 5 years.
3
rd
DAy I
My message is it cant be done the frst tme
around; my message is if we are commited
together, we will get there together. We have
made the way, other generaton behind will
have to live with that document. So if you
look at it this way, you wont be hopeless.
If you look at it this way, youll contnue to
work and to be inspired, that at least they are
rules and principles and doctrines in there
that we are together into a larger space for
our future generaton. And that is what Ive
been trying to do in the past 5 years. Many
initatves, many undertakings, and many
many actvites pushing the parameters and
the envelope.
The frst tme Pak Rafendi and Pak Marzuki
were trying to have that internatonal ASEAN
Human Rights Conference, I was asked not
to come to you by ACPR, by members of
the CPR who said the SG cant be ahead of
us. We have not decided to engage the civil
society. I said, Look at the Charter. If you are
not ready at least give me a space because
we cant keep them out. Now I met them
this morning and I said, Im sorry I cant be
with you too long because I have to atend
human rights meetng and they dont have
anything to say. It is recognized that this is
the space, the row. For that, I think you have
to be grateful. And it is my privilege to be
part of the journey with you.
Report of The ASEAN Community Dialogue

DAy II
Dialogue of the Commitee of Permanent
Representatves (CPR) with Civil Society
Organizatons (CSO) and Academics from
ASEAN Member States
DAy II
Representatves of Civil Society Organizatons
(CSOs) and the Commitee of Permanent
Representatves (CPR) broached new ground
as they interacted with each other for the
frst tme in their respectve insttutonal
histories. Established under the Charter of
the Associaton of Southeast Asian Natons
(ASEAN), the CPR is composed of diplomats
referred to as Permanent Representatves
(PRs) from ten member states of ASEAN who
are statoned in Jakarta.
Meanwhile, the group representng civil
society at this event was comprised mostly
of representatves from CSOs registered
in Southeast Asian countries as well as
academics from universites and think tanks
in the region. Fresh of the heels from an
informal dialogue with the ASEAN Secretary
General on 29 November the third of such
meetngs since 2007 the meetng with
the CPR was of some signifcance for CSO
representatves who have been keen to
expand their access and understanding of
ASEANs insttutons in order to advance the
agenda for a people-oriented regionalism.
The novelty of this interacton is well
recognized from the outset, with CSO
representatves mindful of the sensitvity
atached to such interacton by some member
states who are perceived to have eschewed
substantal contact with civil society groups,
in part because of the elite nature of ASEAN
policy making, and equally because of the
discomfort among some member states with
CSOs advocacy of politcal and civil libertes
that comes under the rubric of democracy
and human rights.
However, with the gradual inclusion of these
cosmopolitan concepts into the discourse of
DAy II
ASEAN regionalism one that culminated
with the ASEAN Charter and its espousal
with a people-oriented ASEAN (2008: 5)
coupled with a commitment to strengthen
democracyand to promote and protect
human rights and fundamental freedoms
(2008: 4) there has emerged a new
normatve ground on where representatves
of member states, such as the CPR, fnd
themselves eager to engage with civil society
groups so as to give substance to the claims
of a people-oriented, if not people-centred,
ASEAN.
Sensitvity towards member states thus
served as an organizing principle at various
levels of preparaton for this meetng. In
his speech to CSOs on the eve of the CPR-
CSO meetng, the ASEAN Secretary General
emphasized that CSOs should be sympathetc
and not confrontatonal with PRs. During their
preparatory meetng a few hours later, CSO
representatves agreed among themselves
about the importance of making the PRs
more comfortable in their company.
Indeed, this concern with comfort and
sensitvity shaped the setng and character
of interacton between the CSOs and PRs in
two specifc ways. First, it informed the choice
of having this dialogue over a relaxed and
informal lunch at Bebek Bengil restaurant.
Second, it directly informed the arrangement
of face-to-face interacton where it was
decided that the two groups would not
sit opposite each other but spread evenly
around tables, with two CSO representatves
sitng with one PR.
The object here was to preclude either side
from setng up each other as a collectve
and potentally adversarial group. Instead,
it was to allow both sides to mingle and
make personal acquaintance over informal
DAy II
conversatons during lunch. This premium
on comfort was ted to the objectve of CSO
representatves to ensure that this would not
be a one-of dialogue with the CPR but be
able to be insttutonalized in a long term.
The PRs were the frst to arrive at the well-
lit meetng room of Bebek Bengil. CSO
representatves streamed in soon afer and
introduced themselves to PRs, shook hands
with them by turn. These introductons
contnued for the next ffeen minutes as
both sides chated over drinks. Thereafer,
partcipants took their assigned seats for
lunch. For the next hour the room was
animated by multple conversatons and
humour as partcipants spoke in provincialized
corners around the table, and in instances
where the PR and CSO representatves of
the same country did in the same language.
The plan to seat partcipants across group
afliatons and make them commune over a
meal seemed to relax the setng as well as
potentally take the edge of pre-given group
identtes they might have brought to the
table.
The Dialogue conceived as a ritualized
discursive actvity began with an introducton
by the Permanent Representatve of
Indonesia Ambassador I Gede Ngurah
Swajaya who served as its moderator, and
he indeed played a lead role in organizing
this initatve. Ambassador Ngurah formally
introduced his colleagues from the CPR and
welcomed partcipants to the event. He
observed that the CPR was keen to engage
with civil society in order to bring ASEAN
closer to the people and to engage them in
the collectve accomplishment of the goals
and objectves of ASEAN. This was followed
by formal introductons by members of the
civil society led by Ms. Yuyun Wahyuningrum,
the Senior Advisor on ASEAN and Human
Rights at the Human Rights Working Group
of Indonesia (HRWG).
Some of the key themes raised and discussed
during this dialogue are presented in the
following sectons.
DAy II
The Role of the CPR in ASEAN
Ambassador Ngurah began by clarifying the
ratonales and scope of CPR. This was of
some importance to CSO representatves
as there were some ambiguites about the
precise role of CPR, especially due to its
relatve newness as an ASEAN mechanism
and growing importance within ASEANs
policy coordinaton in Jakarta.
Ambassador Ngurah noted that the CPR
was established in 2009 under the ASEAN
Charter and it had taken over the work
hitherto managed by the ASEAN Standing
Commitee. He referred to Artcle 12 of the
ASEAN Charter to explain the mandate of
CPR which is to promote beter coordinaton
and coherence among the more than ffy
sectoral bodies of ASEAN having emerged
around three community pillars of Politcal
Security, Economic and Socio-Cultural
cooperaton.
He went on to add that one of the highlights
of CPRs work is to facilitate the engagement
and coordinate the day-to-day business of
ASEAN with external partes, including the
ten Dialogue Partners of ASEAN, some of
which the US, China, Japan and South Korea
have opened their Permanent Missions
in Jakarta. As well, the CPR liaises with the
ASEAN Secretary General on how to promote
the efcient work of the ASEAN Secretariat,
an objectve that has become urgent in the
context of numerous Plans of Actons and
burgeoning actvites placed to achieve an
ASEAN community by 2015.
Other members of the CPR added to this
discussion. Dato Hasnudin Hamzah, the
Permanent Representatve of Malaysia, spoke
about CPRs role in coordinatng the work for
the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectvity. He
added, regarding this, people in think tanks
and Track 2 have a lot more to contribute to
the community building project because the
challenges ASEAN faces are changing and the
world is not as predictable as it was in the
past.
Ambassador Kan Pharidh, the Cambodian PR
to ASEAN and the current Chair, highlighted
the role of CPR as the trustee of ASEAN
Foundaton. He praised the idea of meetng
with civil society representatves, saying that
this was an opportunity to share views and
informaton. He also mentoned that he had
learned about the CSOs informal dialogue
with the ASEAN S-G the previous day, and
that it had been a productve exchange.
DAy II
Ambassador Min Lwin, the Permanent
Representatve of Myammar, chose to
elaborate further the point of connectvity,
saying that connectvity is not simply
infrastructural and physical, but also
organizatonal and insttutonal, thus entails
people to people contact. He emphasized
that it was not only the duty of governments
but also of civil society to promote ASEAN.
He urged representatves of civil society
to promote ASEAN in their respectve
countries.
The importance of civil society in spreading
awareness of ASEAN and the view that
such awareness undergirds a plausible plan
for an ASEAN community were reiterated
by Ambassador Suvat Chirapant, the PR of
Thailand to ASEAN, as well as by Ambassador
Emaleen Abdul Rahman Teo, the Permanent
Representatve of Brunei to ASEAN.
Issues and Concerns Raised by CSO
Representatives
Mr. Jusuf Wanandi, the Chairperson of CSIS
and a prominent analyst of ASEAN since its
founding years, then took over. Emphasizing
the importance of this interacton, he thanked
the CPRs for their partcipaton as well as for
elaboratng their specifc work in ASEAN.
He observed that internal cohesion within
ASEAN was imperatve in light of the broader
geopolitcal context, which had become more
uncertain in recent years. This cohesion, he
argued, would come from ASEAN becoming
a real community of people, and that thus
why people-centred actvites such as this
one are important.
Mr. Sinapan Sammydorai, the CSO
representatve from Singapore, noted that
the very fact that CPR and CSOs were meetng
was an expression of the increased level of
DAy II
trust among the stakeholders of ASEAN. He
raised his concern about the absence of a
legally binding ASEAN instrument on migrant
workers that would facilitate the cross border
mobility of workers and provide them with
basic protectons.
There was, he argued, a very unifed stand
from the sending countries for some level
of protecton but, equally, it was matched
by the strong resistance from receiving
countries such as Singapore, Malaysia
and Brunei. He called for minimum labour
standards in the region, said that receiving
countries must cooperate and trust a bit
more. His second point raised a queston
that would be the focus of much discussion
as the session proceeded how should CSOs
communicate with the CPR? He queried how
issues could be thematcally raised with the
CPR as it had not been atempted before.
Dr. Rizal Sukma, the Executve Director of
CSIS, came on this point, noted that CSOs
would have to prioritze issues on which they
would like to engage with the CPR since the
later would not have the tme to sit across
the board with CSOs in all of their areas of
interest. Addressing the broader point of
this interacton, Dr Sukma underlined the
signifcance of this dialogue as the frst step in
overcoming the ambiguity within the ASEAN
Charter regarding the specifc mechanisms
by which ASEAN can engage with civil society
actors in order to make the associaton more
people-oriented. In this regard, the Jakarta
Dialogue between CSOs and the ASEAN
Secretary General as well as the current
interacton with the CPR are precisely the sort
of initatves that may be insttutonalized in
the future. Such actvites, he argued, were
important in making ASEAN acquires direct
relevance for people at the grassroots level
by, for instance, improving welfare in a
village, and provides greater recogniton to
marginalized groups in society. CSOs thus
could be an important partners in extending
the message of ASEAN at the grassroots, he
concluded.
Another CSO representatve, Ms. Diana
Yusdiana from AGENDA, remarked that her
experiences over the past two days from
meetng the ASEAN Secretary General to
interactng with the CPR had introduced
her to a new network of people and enabled
her to overcome a sense of distance from
ASEAN. She argued that although ASEAN
has a forum for disability related issues, the
associaton lacks of comprehensive strategy
to deal with the problem. She also asked
how civil society groups could engage with
the CPR on a regular basis.
DAy II
The queston of regularized interacton was
detailed by Dr Pranee Thiparat, a lecturer at
Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. She
began by notng that the CPR could play
the role of relaying issues raised by CSOs to
their respectve governments, thus establish
a line of communicaton between CSOs
and governments. This would be benefcial
since access to the ASEAN Secretary General
and even natonal foreign ministries had
been challenging thus far. As well, she was
mindful of much work CPR has and that it
was implausible to expect meetng with
CPR more than twice a year. She ventured
whether there could be similar initatves
in each of ASEAN countries, where an
organizaton like HRWG in Indonesia
brings CSOs together. Meanwhile, the CPR,
in consultaton with CSOs, could prioritze
certain issues they would like to focus on in
partcular ASEAN countries.
Dr Tang Siew Mun, the Director of ISIS
Malaysia, reminded partcipants of the
importance of Track 2 and Track 3 in
community building and observed that the
one unifying both levels is the problem of
funding. While there is a great deal of Track 2
and Track 3 actvites being organized within
member countries, CSOs are unable to
expand the scope of their actvites in fellow
ASEAN member states because stakeholders
and funders queston reason they should fund
initatves outside their home countries. This
is where, he noted, he and others have found
support from external sources in Europe,
Japan, America and Denmark. However, this
raised the queston why ASEAN does not
provide funds by itself. External aid comes
with external interests and it is important
for ASEAN to have some measures of self-
reliance. This is where ASEAN, and specifcally
organs like the ASEAN Secretariat, should
step in and be relevant. As we are moving
towards a community, he averred, we should
fund our own research and actvites rather
than rely on external partes.
To this, Ambassador Ngurah responded
that an ongoing discussion was existng
within ASEAN about how far member states
should rely on external resources in order to
strengthen the community building process.
He noted that the main source of funding for
bridging the development gap comes from
the ASEAN-6, even as Dialogue Partners
contribute signifcant resources.
Dr Tang also enquired about the status of
ASEAN Insttute of Peace and Reconciliaton
(AIPR), to which Ambassador Ngurah
answered that the AIPR is being launched
by ASEAN leaders at the Leaders Summit in
Phnom Penh in November this year. ASEAN
member states have agreed that the AIPR
centre will be located in Jakarta and at this
stage the focus is on compiling lessons
learned on confict preventon, confict
DAy II
resoluton, post-confict peace building and
developing a roster of experts from civil
society and academia.
Accreditation of CSOs
Questons concerning the future of
engagement with the CPR led to a more
substantal discussion about whether CSOs
should be accredited to ASEAN, and, if so,
how this should be achieved. This was raised
by Ms. Ma. Teresita C. Daza, the Charge
dAfaires from the Philippines, who was
puzzled with why CSOs had been uninterested
in seeking accreditaton to ASEAN. She noted
that a guideline exists for the accreditaton of
CSOs to ASEAN but the informaton she had
from the ASEAN Secretariat suggested that
very few CSOs trying to avail of the linkage.
Dr. Herman Kraf, a lecturer at the University
of Philippines, responded that this might
be caused by a certain level of discomfort
among CSOs due to being associated with
ASEAN in past histories, the one that has
decreased but not completely disappeared.
He argued, however, that the framework
of accreditaton should be reconsidered
because even without accreditaton, civil
society groups had engaged with ASEAN
in the past considering, for instance, the
numerous consultatons via the EPG process
for the ASEAN Charter, the East Asia Vision
group, and over the Terms of Reference for
the AICHR, to name a few. This raises the
queston of whether accreditaton is useful
in the frst place and whether it should be a
prerequisite for engagement.
He argued that while CSOs should be
free to accredit, it should not be held as a
prerequisite for engagement. This led him
to a second related point: civil society is
a fundamentally diverse domain and this
would make CSOs difcult, if not impossible,
to prioritze issues. Each group has its own
issues and it would be difcult for CSOs,
even within a partcular country, to agree
on placing one set of issues before others.
What might be more plausible is some form
DAy II
of functonal engagement whereby women
groups raise issues to representatves of
ASEAN via ACWC. Identfying functonal and
thematc areas of engagement may be a
benefcial way of organizing engagement.
Wahyuningrum added that the current
guideline for accreditaton was lacking of
fexibility, specifcally it requires CSOs to cover
all ten ASEAN member countries in order to
be accredited. This was not always possible
for CSOs. Moreover, there were questons
about whether accreditaton necessary and
useful. She noted that although HRWG was
not accredited, it had been nonetheless
actvely engaging with ASEAN.
Ambassador Ngurah clarifed that such
requirement for CSOs to cover all ten member
countries in order to be accredited does not
exist. The more important thing is that the
scope of their work be regional rather than
natonal in character.
Mr. Sammydorai pointed out that the process
of accreditaton is not straightorward and
its rules remain unclear. He said he had
sought accreditaton three years back but
was informed by the ASEAN Secretariat
that the guidelines for accreditaton were
being revised and that there was no point
for his task force to apply for accreditaton
untl these new guidelines completed.
Furthermore, he lamented that the staf at
the ASEAN Secretariat had changed and he
did not receive any response from new staf
members regarding his queries. Even though
his organizaton is not accredited, it has
branches in eight ASEAN countries and they
frequently interact with state representatves
in individual countries.
Ambasador Ngurah responded that he
had clarifed with the ASEAN Secretariat to
use the 2006 guidelines as long as the new
guidelines is not approved. In short, the
guidelines for accreditaton are very much
in place, and that Mr. Sammydorai should
follow up with the ASEAN Secretariat once
again.
Ambassador Lim Thuan Kuan, the Permanent
Representatve of Singapore, also weighed in
on this issue. He said that the CPR had been
grappling with this issue for two to three
years. The issues that had been raised in the
course of this discussion why should a CSO
accredit when it already met with sectorals
have ofen come up in their CPRs ongoing
discussion. Furthermore, they had decided
not to put a stop to engaging with CSO without
accreditaton even though technically this
shouldnt be the case. He noted that the
status of accreditaton was not an easy one
and that it was yet to be resolved.
DAy II
Closing Points:
Managing Expectations
Ambassador Lim emphasized that there
needs to be greater understanding among
CSOs about what CPR is and can or cannot
do. The CPR, he pointed out, is not an
alternatve channel or mechanism, nor a
super-body for policy making. Taking on
board Mr. Sammydurais points about the
problem of migrant labour, he said that such
problems would have to be dealt with at
the sectoral level. He added that while the
CPR could convey issues to their respectve
government, they are not in the positon to
make decisions regarding them, not least
because PRs are not experts on issues such
as immigrant labour or disability. In short,
it is important to avoid overestmatng the
ability of CPR.
Mr. Rafendi Djamin, the Indonesian
Representatve to the AICHR, agreed with
this assessment. He said that the CPR
cannot be expected to solve the large
range of issues raised by CSOs. While this
frst dialogue between the CPR and CSOs
was meant to explore possibilites and to
build acquaintance, it is important to think
about what the next step should be and
whether there can be a deeper discussion
on partcular kinds of issues. He also
underscored, presumably for the CPR, that
there should be a beter appreciaton of the
nature of civil society: that it can be unruly
since it is natural for them to disagree and
debate with each other.
Ambassador Ngurah reiterated the point
made by Ambassador Lim. He said that the
CPR is not an implementng body and nor
does it develop policy at the natonal level.
Their task is to relay and convey informaton
and to help coordinatng and promotng
coherence among diferent sectoral bodies.
However, through conversatons like this,
they can help prioritzing certain concerns
and incorporatng them into ASEANs
actvites. He gave example on how they had
emphasized their concern for developing the
capacites of SMEs to Dialogue Partners and
had succeeded in incorporatng this concern
in the various Acton Plans they had worked
out with Dialogue Partners.
He concluded the dialogue by suggestng that
CSO representatves should contact their
respectve natonal PRs. He noted that this
exchange of ideas and concerns had been
fruitul and that this conversaton between
CSOs and CPR should contnue since they
both share the goals of making the ASEAN a
region stable, peaceful and secure region.

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Section III: Annexes
1990s, about the importance for ASEAN to
have the ASEAN human rights commissions
or mechanism. He really did it with passion,
so he is not only, you know, one of those
agendas of Indonesia policy, but he did it
with passion. We all look forward later on to
listen to Pak Hassans view where we are now
and what are the challenges that we face and
how we can actually move to the future.
I would also like to use this opportunity
to thank Swiss Government, especially
Ambassador Worker for his support for the
actvites that we already started 2 or 3 years
ago with Pak SurinPitsuwan, the Secretary
General of ASEAN, in trying to bring together
all of us, those who are actually actve in
human rights promoton and some of us also
actve in human rights protecton to come
together to Jakarta to share our views and
also to try to encourage further the progress
in strengthening the ASEAN human rights
architecture.
I would also like to thank Pak Rafendi Djamin
who has been instrumental in Indonesia
atempt to push this idea and agenda
within the ASEAN context. I think he is the
only NGO person who actually serves as
the commissioner in ASEAN human rights
commissions. And in fact, because of his
being elected three years ago to be the
commissioner, now that we know NGO
stands for Next Government Ofcials. So
again thanks for being here, so probably I
will pass the microphone again to Yuyun and
also of course thanks to Yuyun and Lina who
made this meetng possible. Thank you.
Good morning everyone. First of all, on

behalf of CSIS, and Human Rights Working
Group, I would like to welcome all of you to
these series of events relatng to the ASEAN
human rights. In fact, CSIS is really pleased
to have partnership with Human Rights
Working Group to organize this meetng.
And some of you probably have been to the
previous two dialogues and discussionsover
the last 3 years, some are new and this is
really good to see old friends such as Herman
and Pranee who have been very actve
in providing intellectual impulse into the
process of establishing the ASEAN human
rights architecture in Southeast Asia.
We also fortunate today that we have Pak
Hassan Wirajuda whom, I think, we all
familiar especially about his role in trying to
put these ASEAN human rights architecture
in place. Pak Hassan, you know, when he
began the initatve, I think by the end of
OPENING REMARKS
Mr. Rizal Sukma
on behalf of CSIS
Annex #1: Speeches

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become a theme which does not automatcally
lead anymore to defensive reactons from
all sides but which allows to raise issues
of common concern constructvely. This is
what Switzerland hopes to contribute with
its work to promote and protect of human
rights worldwide.
The ASEAN human rights architecture
the topic of todays conference has seen
major development in the past years most
impressively so since the entering into force
of the ASEAN Charter and the creaton of
AICHR and other dedicated Commissions
whose work Switzerland closely follows
and to which it ataches great hopes and
expectatons.
Expectatons indeed ladies and gentleman
frst and foremost in terms of a further
deepening of discussions on human rights in
the region, as well as in terms of contnued
more insttutonalized opportunites for
exchange and interacton between ASEAN
Members and their respectve civil societes
in the ASEAN framework in the future.
Let me end dear friends on a note of hopeful
cauton, which also derives from my own
countrys experience. Human Rights do
not get accepted and respected because
of anyone from the outside calling for their
respect. No the work is done inside each
and every country. It is you, representatves
from civil society who together with your
governments work towards the creaton of
an adequate natonal normatve framework
in respect of human rights and its very
implementaton.
Let me wish to all of you fruitul deliberatons
today, and all the best of luck in your future
undertakings. Thank you very much.
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear Friends
Let me welcome you to this third forum
bringing together civil society representatves
from the ASEAN region with high-ranking
ofcials of ASEAN here in Jakarta.
Who would have thought in 2009 that the
small informal platorm it was at the tme
would evolve into the proud public conference
today? A high level gathering refectng a cross
secton of all those interested in furthering
the promoton of human rights and of civil
society partcipaton in the region.
I am really impressed and delighted to see
that the humble support from my country,
Switzerland, efectvely contributed to
creatng momentum towards deepened
exchange between ASEAN, in partcular its
Secretary General, and representatves of
Civil Society dealing with the ofen thorny
issue of human rights in Southeast Asia.
Human Rights have not only in Indonesia but
also in other countries in the region, most
recently and remarkably so in Myanmar,
H.E. Heinz Walker-Nederkoorn
the Ambassador of Switzerland to Indonesia

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this opportunity to express my grattude to
the CSIS and Embassy of Switzerland for its
contnued cooperaton and support in our
works especially in providing a venue for civil
society and ASEAN ofcials to exchange views
on the progress, challenges and possibilites
of human rights regional architecture
development so that we able to gather again
in this event in Jakarta today.
I also have an expectaton that this Jakartas
Human Rights Dialogcould be developed
to become a strategic annual human rights
dialogue in ASEAN that will involve decision
makers form ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN
Member States dealing on human rights,
academia, media and civil society partcularly
human rights organizaton and organizaton of
victms/families of Human Rights violatons.
During the years we have brought together
ASEAN ofcials, diplomats from embassies,
policy makers, academics, civil society and
actvists, to meet, discuss, consult, and
exchange view on the development of human
rights regional mechanism, specifcally this
tme, we want see it in the context of the
review of the ASEAN Charter that will happen
in 2013. Indeed, this has been my vision
to see civil society sit together with ASEAN
ofcial/bodies/organs to have a meaningful
engagement and consultatons
Dear colleagues
As part of civil society, I have been working
on human rights with various organizatons
within and outside of the country to advocate
human rights at regional and internatonal
levels namely at UN, OIC (Organizaton of
IslamicCooperaton) and ASEAN, I and my
Good morning Excellency Pak Hassan
Wirajuda, Ambassador Heinz Walker-
Nederkoorn, Pak Rizal Sukma from CSIS, My
Dear Friends form civil society organizatons,
Diplomatc Community in Jakarta.
Human Rights Working Group, The Indonesias
NGO Coaliton for Internatonal Human
Rights Advocacy, is delighted to welcome all
of you to our event Jakarta Human Rights
Dialogues with the theme this year- Review
of the ASEAN Charter and its Implicatons to
Regional Human Rights Architecture.
This is the third tme we hold the similar
event together with the Centre for Strategic
and Internatonal Studies (CSIS) and through
the fnancial support of the Swiss Federal
Department of Foreign Afairs (FDFA). Back
in 2009 and in 2011, we organized the
frst and second ASEAN Forum on Human
Rights: Informal Dialogue between the
ASEAN Secretariat and Southeast Asias
Civil Society Organizatons. Let me also take
Rafendi Djamin
on behalf of HRWG

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colleagues have had a very high expectaton
to the development of ASEAN especially
since the adopton of ASEAN Charter in 2007
that mandates human rights promoton and
protecton in the region and the establishment
of ASEAN human rights body AICHR.
The acknowledgment of human rights by
ASEAN is what has been dreamed of and
worked on by human rights actvists, civil
society organizatons, and the people of
ASEAN for long tme, before the ASEAN
Charter or AICHR exist. This is the very frst
tme in history, afer 40 years of its birth that
ASEAN fnally has its Charter back in 2007,
its own consttuton with one of its basic
principles is to the adhere the principles
of democracy, the rule of law and good
governance, and respect for protecton of
human rights and fundamental freedoms.
It is the ASEAN Charter that was signed by
the Head of States and Governments of
ASEAN that declares to its people and to the
world that ASEAN has a purpose to promote
and protect human rights and fundamental
freedoms... as stated in its artcle 1. The
ASEAN Charter goes as far as to commit that
it shall establish an ASEAN human rights
body which is now we know as ASEAN
Rights or AICHR, where I have served as the
Representatve from Indonesia to this body
since 2009.
The recogniton of human rights in ASEAN
Charter and the formaton of AICHR, in my
view, is a signifcant progress of Politcal
Cooperaton in ASEAN, in terms of sharing
norms of democracy, Rule of Law, Good
Governance and respect to Fundamental
Freedoms. I would argue that it is a sweet
fruit of the democracy wave that sweep
across the region demanded by the people
that emerged frstly in Indonesia back in
1997-1998 and spread to Malaysia and other
neighbouring countries in SEA. And now, the
people of ASEAN want to see how AICHR and
other human rights bodies within ASEAN
will afect their daily life. They wait, monitor,
queston it, and of course critcize it.
One of the recommendatons from the
previous events regarding the review of
ASEAN Charter and strengthening AICHR
mandate and functon is there is a need
for ASEAN to have a grievance mechanism,
where small business, peasants etc will have
a direct channel to ASEAN organs in order for
them to speak out and submit their concerns
and problems.
Dear colleagues
Let me also say a few words here in my
capacity as the Indonesian Representatve to
the AICHR. As Indonesian Representatve to
AICHR, I would like to express my appreciaton
and full support for this public discussion
and to those who have already contributed
in and are partcipatng in it.
AICHR defnitely needs to hear, listen and
exchange views with civil society, especially
about how to accelerate the development of
our human rights body to be a stronger and
reliable body in the future as expected by the
people of ASEAN. This event is also important
in order to promote human rights discourse
in ASEAN. Through idea and experience
sharing between ASEAN and civil society,
both sides will understand the problems, the

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challenges, the opportunites, the progress,
the strengths and the weaknesses of this 3
years old human rights body.
In my 3 years experience as AICHR Rep, I
could see some progress have been made,
yet some weaknesses remain to be resolved.
And throughout the tme, the issue of how
to strengthen the promoton and protecton
of human rights in the ASEAN region has also
been discussed and deliberated by not only
AICHR but also its stakeholders. For me, its
a good sign.
As it means that AICHR is not alone in doing
the exercises. This is not only the concern of
AICHR, but also various partes such as other
ASEAN bodies, the stakeholders, civil society,
think thanks, the Secretary General, the
Commitee of Permanent Representatves
of ASEAN; the regional, cross regional and
internatonal human rights community.
Dear colleagues
Throughout the work of AICHR, the issue
of how to strengthen the promoton and
protecton of human rights in the ASEAN
region has also been discussed and
deliberated. This issue is refected in the 5
year Work Plan of AICHR 2009-2015 which
was already approved by AMM (ASEAN
Minister Meetng). It is refected under
Actvites items on AICHR Secretariat with
the ultmate goal to have a strong dedicated
AICHRs secretariat, equipped with adequate
experts and resources, and under item
Review of AICHR TOR that will start in year
2014. Agenda item strengthening AICHR
secretariat is already becomes a standing
agenda in every AICHRs regular meetng.
Throughout the work of AICHR, excellent
support to the AICHR has also been provided
by the unit within ASEAN Secretariat, under
the leadership of H.E. SG Surin Pitsuwan and
DSG Ambassador Bagas Hapsoro. As stated
in the TOR that ASEAN Secretariat assists
the AICHR through providing the necessary
secretarial support to the AICHR to in order
to ensure its efectve performance. I am
pleased to share with you that the unit
supportng AICHR within ASEAN Secretariat
has increased from 2 to 4 staf members in
the last 2 years which is 100% increase. It is
not enough, but it is an increase.
Specifcally on the role of Secretary General
of ASEAN with AICHR, as stated in the TOR
artcle 7.1, the Secretary-General has also
been provided with provision to be able
to make interventon to the human rights
agenda under the AICHR. It is stated that
the Secretary General of ASEAN could
bring relevant issues to the atenton of
the AICHR in accordance with the Charter
and in so doing; the Secretary-General of
ASEAN shall concurrently inform the ASEAN
Foreign Ministers of these issues. This is the
quotaton from the TOR. The current human
rights and humanitarian crisis and challenges
as stated by H.E. SG SurinPitsuwan on the
communal confict in Arakan State, Myanmar
or the raising concern on serious violaton
of Religious Freedom in ASEAN as stated by
current Chair of ASEAN H.E. Prime Minister
Hun Sen during his speech at the ASEAN Social
and Cultural Community Council meetng
this October 2012 in Phnom Penh, could be
some issues that could be intervened by the
ofce of SG ASEAN in accordance with TOR
artcle 7.1

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Various informal and formal consultatons
between the AICHR and the Secretary
General have conducted in the last 3 years
of AICHR establishment. Formal Consultaton
between AICHR and Secretary General of
ASEAN has become a standing agenda item
as well in AICHRs regular meetng held
in ASEAN Secretariat, Secretary General
had delivered inspiratonal remarks at the
opening session, discussed in formal dinners.
I am maintaining my view, that there are
many things could be improved in order to
have efectve and fruitul collaboraton and
coordinaton between the ofce of ASEAN
SG and AICHR in the future.
Dear colleagues
The review of ASEAN Charter as far as I see
could be an opportunity and a challenge at
the same tme. It can be used to strengthen
the human rights body or even to weaken the
human rights body. I believe that all of us here
want to see the review of ASEAN Charter as
a way and opportunity to strengthen it. This
is another challenge that we are in AICHR
has as AICHR will also review its Terms of
Reference in 2014, one year afer the Charter
reviewed. The review of the ASEAN Charter
then defnitely will determine to what extend
the TOR of AICHR could be improved. In my
view, to review means to progress not to
regress, to strengthen not to weaken.
Dear colleagues
I believe this public discussion will produce
concrete results in addressing the above
issues. In this regards, let me express my
grattude on your enduring efort to take part
in workshop. Your constructve engagement
and interventon to ensure that the AICHR
and other human rights bodies within ASEAN
will develop into a respected human rights
mechanism, and therefore bringing benefts
to the people of ASEAN, is very essental and
is most welcome. This will be a signifcant
contributon to human rights and progress of
the region.
You have much to discuss, and we all
have much to learn. I wish you all a most
productve, actve and lively discussion in the
coming days. Thank you.

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Allow me to commend the Centre for
Strategic and Internatonal Studies (CSIS),
the Embassy of Switzerlandand the Human
Rights Working Group for co-sponsoring the
Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue.
The promoton and protecton of human
rights is a relatvely new agenda in ASEAN that
was frst brought up in the 2008 ASEAN
Charter. ASEANs progress on human rights
are stll in its inital stage, and it has not
been moving as fast as we all want to see.
We cannot just simply leave the process
to ASEAN governments; civil societes in
ASEAN countries must also play their roles.
Building a politcal and human rights culture
in ASEAN is an important element in building
a future architecture for human rights in
ASEAN.
Let me briefy explore to the Historical
Background to the Architecture of Human
Rights in ASEAN.Civil societes throughout
ASEAN frst started to promote and protect
human rights in the 1970s, three decades
earlier than their ofcial counterparts--
ASEAN governments. However, policies
to promote and protect human rights
vary among ASEAN member countries.
The respectve governments capacity to
respond to demands for greater promoton
and protecton of human rights relates to
the degree of openness and adherence
to democracy, as the two are closely
interrelated.
The Philippines was the frst country in the
region to establish a Commission on Human
Rights. Manila was also the frst to sponsor the
frst Asia Pacifc Workshop on Human Rights
in 1990, which was held with the full support
and actve partcipaton from Philippine
civil society. Philippines democracy which
was critcized by Lee Kuan Yew as lacking
in discipline and enjoying low economic
growth was an important factor behind the
Philippines human rights movement.
In Indonesia, the then military dominated
administraton of President Suharto began to
ofcially address the demand for promoton
and protecton of human rights in January
1991, when the Foreign Ministry organized
the frst natonal workshop on human
rights. The Natonal Seminar presented 3
recommendatons to the Government of
Indonesia:
a. the establishment of an inter-agency
working groups on human rights;
b. to play an actve role in the regional/
internatonal discourse on human rights;
c. to establish a natonal commission on
human rights.
Keynote Speech by
H.E. Dr. N. Hassan Wirajuda
former Minister of Foreign Afairs
of Indonesia

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The frst two recommendatons were
immediately implemented. They were
notably followed up in 1990, as Indonesia
joined the UN Commission on Human Rights
that year which is the frst in our history.
However, the Dili incident on 12 November
1991 gravely set back our policy. The process
of developing an adequate policy on human
rights, partcularly in regard to the third
recommendaton, was halted. To generate
new momentum, we hosted the Asia Pacifc
Workshop on Human Rights in January
1993. During the opening of the workshop,
which was held at the Presidental Palace,
President Suharto announced that Indonesia
would establish the Indonesian Natonal
Commission on Human Rights, we call it
Komnas HAM, which he founded six months
later on 7 June 1993 a week before the
opening of the Second World Conference on
Human Rights in Vienna. It was an irony that
while Indonesia was ofen defensive about
its human rights record to the internatonal
community, President Suhartos New Order
Government approached domestc concerns
about Indonesias human rights situaton in a
positve manner.
Although the Natonal Commission on Human
Rights (Komnas HAM) was established by
a Presidental Decree, it had a balanced
mandate between its promotonal and
protecton functons. Therefore, when
Komnas HAM began to work in 1993, 10
December 1993, it was relatvely well
equipped to address gross human rights
violatons which occurred in diferent
parts of Indonesia. The mandate also
enabled Komnas HAM to gradually erode
the monopoly on truth by the most powerful
group in our society. Komnas HAMs work also
sowed the seeds of democracy in Indonesia
in the last decade of the 20
th
century.
At the internatonal level, by mid 1993,
internatonal discourse on human rights
moved to a positve trend. As bloc politcs
were immediately dissipated, the 2
nd
World
Conference (on Human Rights) setled
the debate on the substantve content
of human rights, namely that both civil
and politcal rights, as well as social and
economic rights, are indivisible. The
conference also stpulated that the approach
on protecton and human rights should be
less politcized and less fnger-pointng, and
setled the diferences of approach through
dialogue. And I should add that an important
part of the consensus was that gross violaton
of human rights are issues of internatonal
concern, although the obligaton to address
it remains those of respectve natonal
governments.
In the wake of the Second World Conference
on Human Rights, the ASEAN 5 ofcially began
to address human rights policy defciencies
for the frst tme. During a Foreign Ministers
Meetng in Singapore in 1993, it was 3 months
afer the Vienna Conference, the ASEAN
5 agreed to consider the establishment of
an ASEAN human rights mechanism this is
refected in paragraph 18 of the Singapore
Final Statement).
ASEAN did not pull out of the commitment
it made in Singapore. In 1996, I helped
establish a Working Group on ASEAN
Human Rights Mechanism chaired by
MarzukiDarusman, which was based on civil
society. The Group managed to establish

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a degree of communicaton with ASEAN
Foreign Ministers, albeit a limited one.
But in practce it only had limited infuence
in changing ASEANs policy responses
on human rights. The 1997-1998 East
Asian monetary crisis that struck ASEANs
major members, and the expansion of ASEAN
from 6 to 10 member states weakened
and complicated the organizatons human
rights policy response on human rights. The
drafing of the ASEAN Charter, partcularly
on a provision enabling an ASEAN human
rights body, was revisited following an earlier
atempt to establish an ASEAN human rights
mechanism, which was sidelined for 14 years
since 1993.
Obstacles to the Development of a Politcal
and Human Rights Culture in ASEAN. There
are 4 major obstacles:
a. Lack of democracy
The internatonal community has a
universally accepted understanding that
there is a strong correlaton between
democracy and human rights. In the
absence of democracy, we cannot expect
that all human rights (in its indivisibility
between civil and politcal rights, as well
as economic, social and cultural rights)
will be respected, for in the absence
of checks and balances, a monopoly of
power by an authoritarian government
will lead to a monopoly of truth, which
in turn perpetuates gross violatons of
human rights and a culture of impunity.
Furthermore, the lack of respect for civil
and politcal rights are an obstacle to
democracy.
In terms of procedural democracy, all
ASEAN countries regularly hold electons,
but they are not genuine. Prerequisites
to genuine electons --or electons with
integrity-- are respect for civil and politcal
rights, freedoms such as the rights to
organize or assemble, the rights to vote
and be nominated as candidates, freedom
of assembly, as well as freedoms of opinion
and speech. Without the guarantees of
such rights, electons can be regular but
are not necessarily genuine, free, fair
and democratc. Therefore we cannot
talk about the promoton and protecton
of human rights without addressing the
defcit of democracy in ASEAN.
b. Imbalanced development concepts
and the Asian tigers
In East Asia, including the South East Asian
sub-regions, development was defned
in terms of economic development,
while politcal development has been
neglected for so long. When ASEAN was
expanded from six to ten members, we
discussed about the development gap in
ASEAN, by which we meant nothing else
but the economic development gap. The
conventonal wisdom back then was that
ASEAN needed an ASEAN Community
to improve the organizatons collectve
economic compettveness, and
simultaneously address the economic
development gap that existed between
the ASEAN 6 and its 4 new members.
The economic community concept
has its merits, provided that it is
balanced. However, it would have not
been balanced if we did not admit and
address ASEANs politcal development
gap. Therefore, Indonesia submited
an ASEAN Security Community concept
in 2002, which laid the groundwork
for the ASEAN Politcal and Security
Community. We strongly believed that
ASEAN cannot develop into a strong
and cohesive organizaton if we do not
address our politcal development gap.

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This gulf is constantly refected in the
existng gap of our politcal orientaton
that divided ASEANs ten countries
into democracies, half democracies (which
hold regular but not genuine electons),
and, on the other extreme, authoritarian
states. Freedom House for example
categorized the ten ASEAN countries into
countries that are free, countries that are
partly free, and the rest meaning 50% as
not free.
That is why the promoton of democracy,
respect for human rights, good governance,
and peaceful confict resoluton are the
core values behind this politcal and
security pillar. This is a lesson that we can
learn from Indonesias experience. The
imbalanced concept of development that
we adopted for so long for 32 years under
the new order of governmenturned the
1997-1998 monetary crisis into a mult
dimensional crisis that almost brought
Indonesia to collapse, as also the case
of the current Arab Spring sweeping the
Middle East. It was also a lesson to learn
for ASEAN, as it was ofen divided over
the lack of democracy and human rights
in Myanmar untl 2010.
East Asia successfully evaded the wave
of democratzaton sweeping the world
following the fall of the Berlin wall
in September 1989, an event, which
marked the end of the Cold War. East
Asias countries managed to successfully
develop their economies, some of them
rising to become Asian Tigers, though
they retained an imbalanced concept of
development. It is interestng to note that
the status of Asian tgers were achieved
by authoritarian governments, hence
reducing their need for democratzaton.
Look at the achievement of South Korea
under authoritarian rule of President Park
Chung-hee, Malaysia under Mahathir
Mohammad, Singapore under Lee Kuan
Yew and Indonesia under President
Suharto.
On the other hand, democratc countries
like the Philippines and India experienced
slow economic growth at least untl mid
1990s.
Chinas spectacular rise as an economic
power under the countrys authoritarian
single party system creates a new model
of economic development, which in a way
bolsters the arguments against the need
to promote democracy.
c. excessive notion of non interference
in domestic affairs
While ASEAN views the principle of non-
interference as a sacrosanct principle,
the organizaton, at least some members,
overlooked the fact that it is one of
the UN Charters principles (Artcle 2
para. 7). Over the past 67 years, the
principle is generally seen as a dynamic
concept. On the other hand, ASEAN stll
clings to this concept in a statc manner.
In purely legal terms, interference is
not just columns of tanks crossing the
border into another territory. Raising
a certain issue in a bilateral, regional or
internatonal forum and consequently
adoptng a resoluton on the mater, may
also consttute interference in a countrys
domestc afairs.
These sorts of issues are ofen raised
and discussed in ASEAN forums. The
country in queston would be tacitly or
overtly involved in the discussion, only
to suddenly reject a resoluton adopted
by the forum, citng non-interference
of domestc afairs. However, the statc
view of the non interference principle is
no longer applicable to gross violatons
of human rights, which under the Vienna

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Consensus 1993 is a mater of internatonal
concern. So while all ASEAN countries are
part of the Vienna Consensus, in practce
we stll heard the arguments of certain
members of ASEAN that crossed violaton
of human rights that occurredin their
countries is a mater of domestc afairs
and for that mater reject any expressions
of concerns from others.
I have been arguing about the need to
approach the sensitve subject mater, in
which the country in queston can easily
invoke the principle of non interference
from a diferent angle, namely from
the perspectve of an ASEAN Community.
In a way, the ASEAN community is a family
of a small group of natons (only 10). In
ASEAN, we strived to create a feeling of
togetherness, as well as to think and act as
part of an ASEAN family where we care of
each other. As with a family, one member
can ask his or her sibling about how they
are faring, with the sincere intenton
to help if needed. Surely this should
not to be seen as interfering. Like other
families, members should be more open
to each other and this is not yet the case.
d. Asian Values
ASEANs member countries atribute the
organizatons conservatve attude to
its argument of Asian values. The debate
between human rights as universal
values on one hand, and as a regional
partcularity on the other hand, reached
its peak during the Second World
Conference on Human Rights in 1993. In
his book Development as Freedom, Prof.
AmartyaSen dismissed Asian values as
nothing but authoritarian values. I
would strengthen his argument against
the premise of Asian values based on non-
derogable human rights. Can you defend
arbitrary detenton, violaton to rights
to life, torture, unfair trial and extreme
poverty from the perspectve of Asian
values?This is something that I expressed
in the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meetng
when we debated for ASEAN to establish
a human rights policy including ASEAN
Human Rights Commissions.
What I just mentoned are obstacles to
the creaton of a politcal culture to
foster respect for human rights. A human
rights culture will not grow in ASEAN
if we do not address those four issues.
Those are the reasons behind the slow
progress of human rights in ASEAN,
despite the adopton of the ASEAN
Charter and the establishment of the
ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on
Human Rights (AICHR) ... Frankly, I always
have difculty to pronounce this AICHR,
simply because from the very beginning
I didnt like it. Why to inject the noton
of intergovernmental? So I argued in
HuaHin2009, call it simply ASEAN Human
Rights Commissions. This is the reason
why, as a Foreign Minister, I pointed Pak
RafendiDjamin, an NGO leader, to sit as
Indonesian Commissioner to the AICHR
to show that it is not the monopoly of
government and it should not be the
monopoly of government. So frankly untl
today I have the difcultes to pronounce
this AICHR.
Despite the politcal acceptance of
Declaraton of the Bali Concord II
in which ASEAN leaders agreed to
promote the ASEAN community. The
ensuing discussions on the promoton
of democracy and human rights were
heated and uneasy. Had artcle 14 of the
ASEAN Charter (the enabling provision on
the ASEAN human rights body) had been
brought to a vote, it could have been
easily vetoed by if its not one against
nine or at least eight against two, but the

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Philippines being chaired and it didnt
speak much, so on the foor it relies on
the Foreign Minister of Indonesia. Placed
in that perspectve, it was a monumental
achievement for ASEAN that the agenda
to promote and protect human rights,
including artcle 14, was enshrined in the
ASEAN Charter.
The ensuing process of drafing the
Term of Reference (TOR) of the ASEAN
Commission on Human Rights (AICHR)
was another difcult batle. As SOM failed
to agree on a draf for the TOR, it was
brought up during the Foreign Ministers
Meetng in HuaHin in July 2009. It was
already endorsed by 9 countries except
Indonesia, which declined to join the
consensus for a number of reasons:
a. The mandates, in our view, contained
in the draf TOR were not balanced,
especially between its functons
to promote human rights and
the protecton of those rights. Even the
promoton mandates as the primary
mandate of the ASEAN Commission
on Human Rights were of the lowest
common denominator. For example,
it lacked a mandate to disseminate
internatonal human rights norms and
standards; it also lacked studies of
internatonal instruments to encourage
ratfcaton by ASEAN member states,
but at least in the past 3 years its not
been done by the commissions.
b. The overall mandates were below
internatonal standards for natonal
as well as regional human rights
insttutons. It was also below the
standards set by the mandates for
the Indonesian Natonal Commission
of Human rights (Komnas HAM)
when it was established in 1993 by
presidental decree.
c. As of 1993, when Indonesias military
dominated government was at the peak
of its power, the mandates for Komnas
HAM were of the highest common
denominator. Its strong mandates on
the protecton of human rights enables
Komnas HAM to receive complaints,
investgate cases on violaton of
human rights, establish fact fnding
mechanism, and publish its fndings
and recommendatons. The Komnas
HAM mandate was strengthened
afer the legal basis to establishment
Komnas HAM was raised to a law in
2003. This law also gave Komnas HAM
the power to subpoena.
Therefore, when ASEAN... The reason why
Indonesia then had difcultes to agree on
the Term of Reference of the AICHR. As a
mater of compromise, I said that we can
go long with the consensus provided that
when ASEAN reviewed the TOR, 5 years from
2009, meaning in 2014, we agreed from the
very beginning in Bangkok, in 2009, that
the revised TOR would contain a balanced
functon namely that functon on the
promoton of human rights as well as functon
of the commission on the protecton of
human rights. Based on this understanding,
then Indonesia joined the consensus, but
something that we keep in our mind and
watch closely what to happen between now
untl 2014 with the view that the process will
lead to a more balanced mandate of AICHR.
Although the promoton of democracy and
human rights are now an ofcial agenda
as mandated by the ASEAN Charter, its
translaton to ASEAN Blueprint on Politcal
and Security Community is relatvely weak
as compared with the ASEAN Blueprint on
Economic Community. Despite the politcal

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and legal commitments stpulated in artcle
14 of the ASEAN Charter, the mandate of
AICHR was also half-hearted and weak.
This explains why the works of the AICHR in
the past 3 years did not progressing as well
as we expected. The AICHR sufers from
a lack of directon and focus. In additon,
the contnuing debate on the AICHR TOR
characterizes the diferent politcal and
human rights cultures of ASEANs member
states. It is therefore surprising to me that
AICHR has focused its work on drafing the
highly politcal and controversial ASEAN
Declaraton on Human Rights (ADHR),
rather than dealing with practcal eforts to
strengthen its insttutonal capacity.
It is ideal to have a declaraton that would
be at par with internatonal standards.A
partcular example is the absence of
reference to Internatonal Bill of Rights,
which comprises of a Universal Declaraton
of Human Rights and its two covenants (on
civil and politcal rights as well as economic,
social and cultural rights).
The fact is that ASEAN member countries
record on ratfcaton of internatonal
instruments is relatvely low, especially on
both covenants. Even a member who ratfed
them like Cambodia which did so when
it was stll under the UNs Administraton
has litle efect in its adherence to the
covenant of civil and politcal rights. So it was
typical work of United Natons when it is a
temporary administer a country in transiton,
like Cambodia and later on Timor Leste.
They ratfed all instruments and it is kind of
a good record for them. But while later on, it
was ignored by the successive government,
it is no longer the business of UN.It is
not surprise that the current draf of the
ADHR only made a reference to the UDHR
1948, not the Internatonal Bill of Rights
which I said contains also the two covenants
which was entered into force in 1967. Thats
a big gap 1948 to 1967, thats why to pick
only elements of the UDHR and not to make
reference to Bill of Rights, ASEAN again chose
the lowest common denominator.
In my view, it would be beter for ASEAN to
postpone the adopton of ADHR if it is stll below
internatonal standards, untl the margin
of diferences to the adherence among
ASEAN member countries to politcal and
human rights culture and their internatonal
standards are at their lowest level. This
can be measured, among others, by the
level of ratfcaton of internatonal human
rights instruments, while the promoton
of democracy in ASEAN made substantal
progress.
In the meantme, the AICHR should focus
on strengthening its own mandate. This
situaton is similar to that faced by Komnas
HAM in its inital stage, whereby no natonal
consensus on human rights were visibly
clear. There were gross violatons of human
rights which occurred in diferent parts of
Indonesia to deal with; so instead of Komnas
HAM drafed Indonesian Charter on human
rights, it focused on the human wrongs and
began to redress them. Indonesia adopted
a law on human rights and amended the
1945 Consttuton by insertng a whole new
chapter on human rights which actually in
short translaton from the provision of UN
Declaraton of Human Rights and the two
covenants, which of course is commensurate

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to internatonal human rights standards in
the wake of Reformasi. So it took some ten
years that again we had an adequate human
rights charter, a consttuton which was a
mandate to insert a new whole paragraph
on human rights. Of course the tme was
right because in the wake of Reformasi, the
promoton and protecton of human rights is
an important pillar of Reformasi.
So there is a danger for us to draf an ASEAN
declaraton on human rights while theres
big divergence in our orientaton, our views
on human rights in the regions. And thats
what was transpired in the discussion on the
ASEAN draf declaraton on human rights.
I fully understand if ASEAN civil societes
are disappointed with the dismal record of
the organizatons work on human rights. At
this stage I would not recommend a review
of the ASEAN Charter with a view to amend
it. Amending the Charter every tme we
encounter problems is too risky. It is possible
because it is man-made, but I would say
that it is not politcally feasible at this stage.
Therefore, here are the available and feasible
optons:
a. To strengthen the mandate of the
TOR of AICHR. In 2009, ASEAN leaders
recognized that the TOR of the AICHR
shall be reviewed every fve years afer
its entry into force to strengthen the
mandate and functons of the AICHR, in
order to develop mechanisms on both
the protecton and promoton of human
rights. This mandate is due for a review
in 2014.
b. Another feasible step is a review of the
ASEAN Blueprint for a Politcal and Security
Community, which to my impression is
inferior compared to the ASEAN Blueprint
for the Economic Community. Or at least
for ASEAN draf a new plan of acton as a
translaton of the ASEAN Blueprint of the
politcal and security community.
c. Above all, we need to address defciencies
in ASEANs politcal and human rights
culture, which are the four points that
I elaborated above. This is a duty of all
ASEAN governments, civil societes and
peopleof ASEAN at large.

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Annex #2: News Coverages
Table of Contents
Date Name of Newspaper Titles
Oct 29 Jakarta Post Rights dialogue to discuss ASEAN Charter
Oct 30 Kompas Rohingya Rentan Radikalisasi
Oct 30 Berita Satu Sekjen ASEAN Anggap Masalah Rohingya Bukan Persoalan Agama
Oct 26 Zambo Times Building a Culture of Engagement in ASEAN through Jakarta Human
Rights Dialogue
Oct 26 Blog Building a Culture of Engagement in ASEAN through Jakarta Human
Rights Dialogue
THE JAKARTA POST:
Rights dialogue
to discuss ASEAN Charter
The Jakarta Post | World | Mon, October 29
2012, 9:34 AM | Paper Editon | Page: 10,
htp://www.thejakartapost.com/
news/2012/10/29/rights-dialogue-discuss-
asean-charter.html
A half-day discussion called Jakarta Human
Rights Dialogue will be held on Monday at
the Aryaduta Hotel in Jakarta prior to the
planned review of the ASEAN Charter next
year.
The dialogue will address issues such as
engaging civil society groups, respectng
human rights, promotng democracy and
good governance in ASEANs high-level
statements and documents all themes
that have discussed since the adopton of the
charter in 2008.
Titled The Review of the ASEAN Charter
and Its Implicatons for a Regional Human
Rights Architecture, the discussion will
showcase former foreign minister Hassan
Wirajuda as its keynote speaker; along with
Indonesias representatve to the ASEAN
Rights, Rafendi Djamin; The Jakarta Posts
editor-in-chief Meidyatama Suryodiningrat;
and Herman J. Kraf, a lecturer from the
University of Philippines, as discussants.
A third informal dialogue between ASEANs
secretary-general with representatves of civil
society and human rights groups will be held
afer the dialogue on Monday. More than
30 partcipants from all 10 ASEAN member
natons will meet with ASEAN Secretary-
General Surin Pitsuwan to discuss issues
related to human rights and community
building. ***
BERITA SATU:
Sekjen ASEAN Anggap Masalah
Rohingya Bukan Persoalan Agama
Untuk pemerintah Myanmar, harus mampu
menyelesaikan permasalahan keamanan,
politk, demokrasi dan HAM.
Selasa, 30 Oktober 2012,
htp://www.beritasatu.com/mobile/
dunia/80248-sekjen-asean-anggap-masalah-
rohingya-bukan-persoalan-agama.html
Kekerasan yang terjadi terhadap Muslim
Rohingya di Myanmar bukanlah kekerasan
karena permasalahan agama, melainkan
kekerasan yang terjadi akibat adanya
permasalahan politk, demokrasi dan Hak
Asasi Manusia (HAM) di salah satu negara
anggota ASEAN tersebut.
Setdaknya, hal tersebut diutarakan oleh
Sekretaris Jenderal (Sekjen) ASEAN, Surin
Pitsuwan, dalam dialog internal yang digelar
oleh Human Rights Working Group (HRWG)

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bersama dengan the Centre for Strategic
and Internatonal Studies (CSIS), dengan
tema The Review of ASEAN Charter and
its implicatons to regional human rights
architecture, di Hotel Aryaduta, Jakarta,
Senin (29/10).
Dengan banyaknya spekulasi yang
menyebutkan bahwa masalah Muslim
Rohingya adalah karena permasalahan
agama, Surin mengaku khawatr akan
terjadi radikalisasi massal terhadap 1,4 juta
penduduk Rohingya tersebut.
Mereka berada di dalam tekanan,
penderitaan, dan kesulitan yang sangat dalam.
Saya khawatr mereka akan diradikalisasikan,
apabila kita tdak melakukan apapun
untuk menolong mereka, kata Surin, usai
digelarnya dialog tertutup tersebut.
Untuk itu, Surin pun berharap komunitas
internasional termasuk di dalamnya ASEAN,
untuk dapat segera mengeluarkan kebijakan
berdasarkan kesepakatan untuk segera
melepaskan penderitaan para Muslim
Rohingya ini. Pasalnya menurutnya, apabila
hal tersebut tdak segera dilaksanakan, maka
yang terjadi adalah seluruh wilayah ASEAN
akan mengalami dampaknya, termasuk juga
Selat Malaka.
Menurut saya, posisi ASEAN dalam
hal ini adalah untuk melaksanakan apa
yang telah kita laksanakan (strategy and
security implicaton). Yang perlu dilakukan
adalah dengan pendekatan kemanusiaan,
untuk melepaskan mereka dari belenggu
kemiskinan, dislokasi, serta pemindahan
secara paksa, sambung Surin.
Surin mengaku optmists, dengan melakukan
pendekatan kemanusiaan sebagaimana
telah sering dilakukan oleh ASEAN dalam
menyelesaikan beberapa konfik, maka tdak
hanya Muslim Rohingya saja yang terbantu,
melainkan juga seluruh pihak lain yang ada
di sekitarnya, yang mengalami penderitaan
serupa sepert kekurangan makanan, sanitasi
dan kelayakan tempat perlindungan.
Dan untuk pemerintah Myanmar, juga
harus mampu menyelesaikan permasalahan
keamanan, politk, demokrasi dan HAM, di
negaranya sendiri, tegasnya.
Yuyun Wahyuningrum, Perwakilan
Masyarakat Sipil ASEAN, juga secara tegas
mengimbau ASEAN untuk dapat segera
menyelesaikan permasalahan Muslim
Rohingya ini. Memang kita sulit untuk
mencapai kesempurnaan. Akan tetapi, kita
harus dapat memberikan informasi apa
yang telah berhasil kita capai selama ini,
katanya.
Yuyun pun mengaku sepakat bahwa apabila
masalah Muslim Rohingya tdak segera
diselesaikan, maka akan berdampak kepada
Selat Malaka dan juga negara-negara lain
yang bergantung di sana, tempat di mana
aktvitas perdagangan dan perekonomian
besar terjadi.
Penulis: Ronna Nirmala/Teddy Kurniawan
KOMPAS:
Rohingya Rentan Radikalisasi
Selasa, 30 Oktober 2012 | 07:54 WIB,
htp://internasional.kompas.com/
read/2012/10/30/07543018/Rohingya.
Rentan.Radikalisasi
JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - Sekretaris Jenderal
ASEAN Surin Pitsuwan memperingatkan
implikasi serius yang sangat mungkin
terjadi jika komunitas internasional,
termasuk ASEAN, gagal meringankan beban
penderitaan warga etnis minoritas Rohingya
di Myanmar.

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Menurut Surin, dalam kondisi sangat tertekan
dan menderita sepert sekarang, warga
Rohingya bisa dengan mudah teradikalisasi.
Jika sampai terjadi, hal itu akan sangat
berbahaya karena dapat memengaruhi
stabilitas kawasan Asia Tenggara, termasuk
Selat Malaka.
Peringatan tersebut disampaikan Surin,
Senin (29/10), seusai menghadiri The Jakarta
Human Rights Dialogue. Sepert diwartakan,
konfik sektarian antara warga minoritas
Rohingya dan warga etnis Arakan, penduduk
asli Negara Bagian Rakhine, Myanmar,
kembali terjadi.
Saya sangat khawatr orang- orang ini akan
teradikalisasi jika tak ada upaya apa pun
yang dilakukan segera untuk membantu dan
meringankan beban mereka. Saat ini orang-
orang Rohingya itu tengah berada dalam
tekanan dan penderitaan yang luar biasa,
ujar Surin.
Dalam kesempatan tersebut sejumlah
perwakilan masyarakat sipil ASEAN
menyayangkan keberadaan Komisi HAM
Antar-pemerintah ASEAN (AICHR), yang
dinilai tdak punya strategi jelas dalam
menghadapi persoalan-persoalan besar
sepert yang terjadi di Myanmar ini.
Yuyun Wahyuningrum dari Human Right
Working Groups mengatakan, sebenarnya
para komisioner AICHR punya kemampuan,
setdaknya untuk mengeluarkan pernyataan
sikap bersama terkait suatu kejadian atau
masalah.
Sayang AICHR tdak punya posisi apa pun,
baik dalam posisi kemanusiaan maupun
terkait pelanggaran hak asasi manusia.
Bahkan, terkait data Freedom House soal
maraknya pembunuhan para jurnalis mereka
tdak pernah mengeluarkan sikap apa pun
tentang itu. Padahal, minimal mereka bisa
mengeluarkan pernyataan prihatn, ujar
Yuyun.
Lina Alexandra dari Centre for Strategic
and Internatonal Studies menyebut AICHR
merupakan insttusi yang kerjanya sebatas
pada negosiasi politk daripada benar-benar
mempromosikan dan melindungi HAM.
Kalau melihat komposisi komisionernya,
sebagian besar berlatar pejabat pemerintah.
Sulit menyandingkan isu kepentngan
nasional dengan perlindungan prinsip HAM,
ujar Lina.
Kecam pemerintah
Dari Sitwe, ibu kota Rakhine, pemerintah
setempat merilis jumlah resmi sementara
korban tewas akibat kerusuhan berdarah yang
terjadi pekan lalu. Sebanyak 88 orang tewas,
terdiri dari 49 laki-laki dan 39 perempuan.
Selain itu, sedikitnya 26.000 warga terpaksa
mengungsi.
Kerusuhan berdarah pekan lalu itu adalah
insiden kedua yang terjadi di Rakhine, yang
dikenal sebagai salah satu basis warga
Rohingya di Myanmar.Kerusuhan serupa
sebelumnya pecah Juni lalu di sejumlah
distrik dan kotapraja di Rakhine. Jumlah total
korban tewas dari dua insiden itu mencapai
180 orang.
Warga korban kerusuhan berdarah ini
mengecam keras Pemerintah Myanmar yang
mereka nilai tdak becus dan tdak mampu
mencegah kerusuhan berulang. Warga marah
karena aparat keamanan dan pemerintah
yang seharusnya melindungi mereka sama
sekali tdak melakukan kewajiban.
Pemerintah sama sekali tdak menuntaskan
persoalan, sedangkan tentara sama sekali
tdak membela kami. Saya merasa seolah
berada di neraka.Tak ada satu pun yang
melindungi kami.Kami tak punya tempat
berlindung dan sekarang kami kehilangan
pekerjaan untuk menghidupi keluarga kami,
kecam Kyaw Myint, salah seorang pengungsi
dari warga Rohingya.

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Kyaw terpaksa mengungsi di kamp
pengungsian Thechaung di luar Sitwe,
setelah rumahnya yang terletak di Pauktaw
terbakar akibat kerusuhan.
Kemarahan juga diungkapkan Maung Than
Naing (37), seorang pedagang asal Desa
Kyauktaw, yang usahanya juga hancur akibat
kerusuhan.Pemerintah, menurut dia, tdak
becus menuntaskan persoalan dari akarnya.
Dia juga mengaku tak mau lagi hidup
berdampingan dengan warga Rohingya.
Juru bicara pemerintahan Rakhine, Myo
Thant, mengaku situasi dan keamanan di
wilayah konfik kembali normal sejak Sabtu.
Untuk menjaga keamanan, aparat kepolisian
dan tentara tetap disiagakan di lokasi
kerusuhan. (AFP/DWA)
Building a Culture
of Engagement in ASEAN through
Friday, October 26. 2012, by ASEAN Nesk
Desk, htp://www.zambotmes.com/
archives/55196-Building-a-Culture-of-
Engagement-in-ASEAN-through-Jakarta-
Human-Rights-Dialogue.html
[Jakarta, 25 October 2012] Since the
adopton of ASEAN Charter in 2008, much was
said about engaging civil society, respectng
about good governance in ASEANs high-level
statements and documents.
As the Charter will be reviewed in 2013,
Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) and
Studies (CSIS) will organize a half-day public
discussion called Jakarta Human Rights
Dialogue (JHRD) with the topic on the
Review of ASEAN Charter and its implicatons
to regional human rights architecture on 29
October 2012, at 09:00-14:00 in Aryaduta
Hotel, Jakarta.
Former Minister of Foreign Afairs of the
Republic of Indonesia, H.E. Hassan N.
Wirajuda will be the keynote speaker in JHRD
along with H.E. Rafendi Djamin (Indonesias
Representatve to AICHR), Mr. Herman J. Kraf
(Lecturer of the University of Philippines)
and Mr. Meidyatama Suryodiningrat (Editor
in Chief of The Jakarta Post) as discussants.
JHRD aims at providing a venue for
democratc dialogue among stakeholders,
including civil society, government ofcials,
diplomats, ASEAN Secretariat stafs, media
practtoners and related human rights
insttutons in ASEAN to exchange views on
the progress, challenges and possibilites
toward the evoluton process of the human
rights systems in ASEAN region.
The Third Informal Dialogue of the ASEAN
Secretary General with Representatves
of Civil Society on Human Rights (The
Dialogue) will be organized right afer JHRD.
More than 30 partcipants from ten ASEAN
member countries will have a dialogue with
H.E. Surin Pitsuwan on issues related to
human rights and community building. It is
expected that practcing the engagement
among stakeholders of the ASEAN Community
will insttutonalize the culture of democratc
dialogue in ASEAN.
The events were made possible through
Also in this blog:
htp://nayheak.wordpress.com/2012/10/25/
building-a-culture-of-engagement-in-asean-
through-jakarta-human-rights-dialogue/

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Press Release
Building a Culture of Engagement in ASEAN
through Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue
the progress, challenges and possibilites
toward the evoluton process of the human
rights systems in ASEAN region.
The Third Informal Dialogue of the ASEAN
Secretary General with Representatves
of Civil Society on Human Rights (The
Dialogue) will be organized right afer JHRD.
More than 30 partcipants from ten ASEAN
member countries will have a dialogue with
H.E. Surin Pitsuwan on issues related to
human rights and community building. It is
expected that practcing the engagement
among stakeholders of the ASEAN Community
will insttutonalize the culture of democratc
dialogue in ASEAN.
The events were made possible through
Contact Person:
Yuyun Wahyuningrum,
Senior Advisor on ASEAN
and Human Rights, HRWG,
Mobile +62 815 1054 3290,
Email: wahyuningrum@gmail.com
Annex #3: Press Release

[Jakarta, 25 October 2012] Since the
adopton of ASEAN Charter in 2008, much was
said about engaging civil society, respectng
about good governance in ASEANs high-level
statements and documents.
As the Charter will be reviewed in 2013,
Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) and
Studies (CSIS) will organize a half-day public
discussion called Jakarta Human Rights
Dialogue (JHRD) with the topic on the
Review of ASEAN Charter and its implicatons
to regional human rights architecture on 29
October 2012, at 09:00-14:00 in Aryaduta
Hotel, Jakarta.
Former Minister of Foreign Afairs of the
Republic of Indonesia, H.E. Hassan N.
Wirajuda will be the keynote speaker in JHRD
along with H.E. Rafendi Djamin (Indonesias
Representatve to AICHR), Mr. Herman J. Kraf
(Lecturer of the University of Philippines)
and Mr. Meidyatama Suryodiningrat (Editor
in Chief of The Jakarta Post) as discussants.
JHRD aims at providing a venue for
democratc dialogue among stakeholders,
including civil society, government ofcials,
diplomats, ASEAN Secretariat stafs, media
practtoners and related human rights
insttutons in ASEAN to exchange views on

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Power Point Presentation
in the Preparatory Meeting (28 October 2012)
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Power Point Presentaton
in the Preparatory Meetng
(28 October 2012)
Preparatory Meeting
Aryaduta Hotel Jakarta, 28
th
October 2012
Annex #4: Preparatory meeting

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Ju:IificcIicn
Ihe ccmmcn prcL|em: fccec Ly regicnc| inIer-
gcvernmenIc| Lccie:, inc|ucing /SE/N:
c) in:IiIuIicnc| ceficiencie: c: c re:u|I cf Ihe incLi|iIy cf
memLer :IcIe: Ic empcwer Iheir crgcnizcIicn: wiIh rec|
cuIhcriIy/mcnccIe Ic cec| wiIh pc|iIicc|
in:IcLi|iIy, pcverIy, cnc humcn righI: vic|cIicn:: cnc
L) Ihe c|iencIicn cf ciIizen: frcm mcking Iheir vcice
hecrc in pc|iIicc| ce|iLercIicn:.
ln fccI, Ihe /SE/N ChcrIer c|:c :eI: cuI Ihe ncrm: cf
Lehcvicr fcr memLer :IcIe: in re|cIicn Ic Iheir
ciIizen:.
Ihe ChcrIer cnc Ihe Fcccmcp fcr Ihe /SE/N
CcmmuniIy, /SE/N i: expecIec Ic perfcrm in c
mcre Ircn:pcrenI, ccccunIcL|e, efficienI,
precicIcL|e, re:pcn:ive cnc pecp|e-crienIec wcy
lI i: cLcuI
Lui|cing c
democrot|c
d|o|ogue in
/SE/N
Since Ihe cccpIicn cf /SE/N ChcrIer in
2008, much wc: :cic cLcuI engcging civi|
:ccieIy, re:pecIing humcn righI:,
prcmcIing cemccrccy cnc cLcuI gccc
gcverncnce in /SE/N: high-|eve|
:IcIemenI: cnc cccumenI:.
8/CK-IC-8/CK Dl/LCGUE
MEEIlNG
J/K/FI/ HUM/N FlGHIS DIALOGbE
3
FD
lNFCFM/L DIALOGbE WlIH /SE/N SECFEI/FY
GENEF/L CN HUM/N FlGHIS
Fre:: Ccnference
COMMbNIIY DIALOGbE: lNFCFM/L LUNCH WlIH
WlIH /SE/N CFF
FECEFIlCN /I IHE FESlDENCE CF IHE
/M8/SS/DCF CF SWlIZEFL/ND

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J/K/FI/ HUM/N FlGHIS
Dl/LCGUE
CLjecIive: Ic exchcnge view: cn Ihe prcgre::,
chc||enge: cnc pc::iLi|iIie: cf humcn righI:
regicnc| crchiIecIure ceve|cpmenI in Ihe
ccnIexI cf Ihe review cf Ihe /SE/N ChcrIer
Cpen fcr puL|ic, inc|ucing mecic
KeyncIe Specker: H.E. Hc::cn N. Wircjucc
Di:cu::cnI:: Hermcn KrcfI, Fcfenci Djcmin,
MeicycIcmc SurycciningrcI
Venue: 8c||rccm, /ryccuIc HcIe|, JckcrIc
3
rc
lNFCFM/L Dl/LCGUE
wiIh /SG cn HUM/N FlGHIS
/SE/N SecreIcry Generc| i: mcnccIec Ic fcci|iIcIe cnc mcniIcr
prcgre:: in Ihe imp|emenIcIicn cf /SE/N cgreemenI: cnc
ceci:icn:, cnc :uLmiI cn cnnuc| repcrI cn Ihe wcrk cf /SE/N Ic
Ihe /SE/N SummiI {ChcrIer, /rIic|e 11.2L).
/SG c|:c hc: Ihe ccciIicnc| Ic:k Ic Lring Ic Ihe cIIenIicn cf Ihe
/SE/N lnIergcvernmenIc| Ccmmi::icn cn Humcn FighI: {/lCHF)
c|| re|evcnI humcn righI i::ue: cnc Ic ccncurrenI|y infcrm Ihe
/SE/N Fcreign Mini:Ier: {/lCHF: ICF, /rIic|e 7.1)
WiIh Ihi: mcnccIe, Ihe /SG i: in cn impcrIcnI pc:iIicn Ic:
8r|dge the re|ot|onsh|p between c|v|| soc|ety ond member stotes
8r|ng the concerns o| c|v|| soc|ety on humon r|ghts |ssues to the AICHk
ond to the Fore|gn M|n|sters

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lNFCFM/L Dl/LCGUE lN IHE
L/SI 4 YE/FS
200, JckcrIc ASFAN Fc|un cn Huncn F|gnt:.

D|c|cgue cetween tne ASFAN
Sec|etc|y Gene|c| cnc
Scutnec:t A:|c': CSC
/SG LrcughI Ihe cIIenIicn
cf /lCHF cn Ihe
impcrIcnce cf engcging
civi| :ccieIy in Iheir
meeIing: in /SEC
2010 -
|n|c|nc| D|c|cgue cetween tne
ASFAN Sec|etc|y Gene|c| cnc
/SG LrcughI Ihe cIIenIicn
cf /lCHF cn Ihe
impcrIcnce cf engcging
civi| :ccieIy in Iheir
meeIing: in /SEC
|n|c|nc| D|c|cgue cetween tne
ASFAN Sec|etc|y Gene|c| cnc
2013

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3
rc
lNFCFM/L Dl/LCGUE
wiIh /SG cn HUM/N FlGHIS
Expcncing pcrIicipcnI:: NGC: + Ihink Icnk +
/ccceme:. Hcping Ic hcve mcre :ecIcr: in Ihe
fuIure.
Divicec inIc: JHFD + Dic|cgue wiIh /SG
Lccking fcrwcrc Ic mcke iI in:IiIuIicnc|izec
CSlS-HFWG-Swi:: EmLc::y in JckcrIc
lnviIcIicn cn|y
Wi|| Le :IcrIec cI 14:00-1:00
Fre:: Ccnference cI 1:00-1:30 + Fre:: Fe|ec:e
/chievemenI:
Ihe inc|u:icn cn Ihe civi| :ccieIy: cc|| upcn /lCHF Ic c:cerIcin IhcI
/HFD wi|| ncI fc|| Le|cw Ihe :Icnccrc: :eI cuI in Ihe Univer:c|
Dec|crcIicn cn Humcn FighI: {UDHF) in Ihe ICF DrcfIing Grcup cf
Ihe /HFD.
Dic|cgue: reccmmenccIicn Ic crecIe c fu||-f|ecge :ecreIcricI fcr
/lCHF in crcer Ic imprcve iI: wcrk cf /lCHF hc: Leen inc|ucec in
Ihe Chcirmcn: SIcIemenI cf Ihe 20
Ih
/SE/N SummiI in /pri| 2012
'Dic|cgue i: ncw c new ncrmc| in /SE/N - ccccrcing Ic Surin
FiI:uwcn - Ihere hc: Leen c chcnge cf Lehcvicr in /SE/N Icwcrc:
cic|cgue inc|. wiIh CSC:
Ihe:e Iwc evenI: genercIe mcre :imi|cr cic|cgue: lNFCFM/L LUNCH
LeIween /SE/N CFF cnc Civi| SccieIy {30
Ih
CcIcLer 2012)
COMMbNIIY DIALOGbE
LeIween /SE/N CFF & Civi|
SccieIy
lniIicIec Ly FermcnenI Fepre:enIcIive cf
lnccne:ic, HFWG, CSlS cnc Swi:: EmLc::y in
JckcrIc
Furpc:e: Ic ccme up wiIh c ccmmcn
uncer:Icncing cn Ihe chcnging /SE/N cnc
icenIify :IrcIegic rc|e cf civi| :ccieIy in Lui|cing up
Ihe /SE/N: pecp|e-cenIerec CcmmuniIy.
Fir:I Iime, NcI ec:y Ic Lring c|| CFF: IcgeIher fcr
Ihi: meeIing. NcI cpen fcr mecic {cI Ihe
mcmenI).
Emphc:ize: mcke Ihe cic|cgue :mccIh cnc
:ucce::fu| :c we ccn e:IcL|i:h gccc prccIice fcr
rep|iccIicn in Ihe ccming yecr:

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8/CKGFCUND
1 DecemLer 200, cI /SE/N
SecreIcricI, curing Ihe fir:I yecr
cnniver:cry cf /SE/N ChcrIer
Surin FiI:uwcn: /SE/N :hcu|c hcve c
Dic|cgue Fcrum Ic exchcnge view:
LeIween /SE/N cnc iI: :Ickehc|cer:
cn Ihree pi||cr:. Ihi: :IcIemenI wc:
ref|ecIec in /SEC Fre:: Fe|ec:e, 200
2010 Nc ccIicn/fc||cw up frcm /SEC
24 NcvemLer 2010 cI Fencng 8i:Irc,
JckcrIc, CSC Ccn:u|IcIicn wiIh MF/
lnccne:ic fcr lnccne:ic: cgencc in
2011: chcirmcn:hip
Ihe icec cf CCMMUNlIY FCFUM wiIh
/SE/N :Ickehc|cer: wc: ci:cu::ec
wiIh MF/ lnccne:ic
8-10 DecemLer 2010, Lumire HcIe|,
JckcrIc, lnccne:ic: CSC Frep
MeeIing fcr 2011: chcirmcn:hip
CSC reccmmencec c CcmmuniIy
Dic|cgue Ic /SE/N
8/CKGFCUND
2011 MF/ DG /SE/N pickec up Ihe icec Ic Le
Ihe Lenchmcrk cf Ihe /SE/N /nniver:cry.
WcnIec Ic :IcrIec wiIh lnccne:ic:
CcmmuniIy Dic|cgue cn /SE/N
7 Jcnucry 2011
DG /SE/N p|cnnec Ic |cunch Ihe icec in
FeLrucry. Mini:Ier NcIc|egcwc menIicnec
iI in hi: cnnuc| pre:: :IcIemenI
12 Jcnucry 2011, /SEC Fre::
Fe|ec:e
Mini:Ier NcIc|egcwc repecIec Ihe
:IcIemenI cn 12 Jcn 2011 cI Ihe /SE/N
SecreIcricI curing Ihe Ceremcny cf
Hcncing Cver Ihe Chcir cf CFF frcm
VieIncm Ic lnccne:ic
Frcm 2011 Ic 2012 FF lnccne:ic Icck CFF MemLer: Ic meeI
civi| :ccieIy, mecic, univer:iIie:, Ihink Icnk:,
pcr|icmenI memLer:, |ccc| gcvernmenI:
c: c wcy cf prccIicing engcgemenI

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Vi:iI: frcm 2011-2012
CFk Met stokeho|ders |n
Lombok, Indones|o, 2011
CFk V|s|ted Ihe Jokorto
Fost, 2012 [Fhoto: courtesy o| IJF}
/LcuI CFF /SE/N
CFF :Icnc: fcr CcmmiIIee FermcnenI Fepre:enIcIive: in /SE/N.
Ihey cre CcunIry: /mLc::cccr: Ic /SE/N cnc Lc:ec in JckcrIc
Ihe e:IcL|i:hmenI cf CFF i: Lc:ec cn Ihe /SE/N ChcrIer /rI. 12.
McnccIe: cnc FuncIicn::
SuppcrI Ihe wcrk cf CcmmuniIy Ccunci|: cnc /SE/N SecIcrc| 8ccie:
cI mini:Ieric| |eve|:
CccrcincIe wiIh /SE/N NcIicnc| SecreIcricI: cnc /gencie: /SE/N
SecIcrc| Mini:Ieric| cncIher:
8e c |ici:cn Ic Ihe SecreIcry-Generc| cf /SE/N cnc Ihe /SE/N
SecreIcricI in c|| crec: re|evcnI Ic Ihe jcL:
Fcci|iIcIe /SE/N cccpercIicn wiIh exIernc| pcrIner:,

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/LcuI CFF /SE/N
ln :uppcrI cf Ihe wcrk cf /SE/N CcmmuniIy Ccunci|, CFF hc:
Ihe fc||cwing cuIie: cnc funcIicn::
lncrec:ing cccpercIicn in ecch :ecIcr Ic :uppcrI /SE/N inIegrcIicn
cnc ccmmuniIy Lui|cing Ly mcniIcring / mcniIcring fc||cw-up repcrI
frcm Ihe SecIcrc| 8ccie: uncer Ihree CcmmuniIy Ccunci|::
Dcing CccrcincIicn LeIween Ihe pi||cr: CcmmuniIy cnc /SE/N
:ecIcrc| meeIing: Ic :uppcrI pc|icy ccherence cnc cccrcincIicn,
cnc
/::i:I in Ihe ce|ivery cf vcricu: repcrI: cnc reccmmenccIicn:
WiIh /lCHF cnc /CWC, CFF hc: c rc|e Ic prcvice
reccmmenccIicn: cn Iheir wcrk-p|cn cnc LucgeI c:
ccn:icercIicn cf /SE/N Fcreign Mini:Ier: cpprcvc|
UpccIe cn CFF: Wcrk:
CFF /SE/N i: c::i:Iec Ly Iwc {2) Wcrking Grcup, ecch cf which hcnc|e:
odm|n|strot|ve cnc budget c: we|| c: deve|opment cooperot|on
{ceve|cpmenI cccpercIicn).
Since iI: incugurcIicn, CFF /SE/N hc: prccucec c vcrieIy cf ccnciIicn:,
ru|e: cnc prccecure:, Ierm: cf reference fcr Ihe e:IcL|i:hmenI cf new
mechcni:m: cfIer Ihe enIry inIc fcrce cf Ihe /SE/N ChcrIer cnc cccrcincIe
Ihe cccpercIicn wiIh /SE/N pcrIner:.
CFF /SE/N meeI: regu|cr|y every mcnIh, LcIh inIernc||y cr inviIing Ihe
/mLc::cccr cr repre:enIcIive cic|cgue pcrIner ccunIrie: cr /SE/N':
exIernc| pcrIner: cnc inIerncIicnc| crgcnizcIicn:.
CFF /SE/N ce|iver: iI: repcrI Ic /SE/N CccrcincIing Ccunci|.
Ic ccIe, CFF /SE/N hc: iniIicIec vcricu: ccIiviIie: in cccpercIicn wiIh Ihe
SIcIe: /mLc::cccr Ic ncn-/SE/N Lc:ec in JckcrIc.
Up Ic ncw, Ihere cre 52 ncn-/SE/N ccunIrie: hcve cppcinIec cmLc::cccr
Ic /SE/N.

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CFF /SE/N
Su|IcncIe cf 8runei Dcru::c|cm
H.E. Emo|een Abdu| kohmon Ieo
Kingccm cf CcmLccic
H.E. Amb. Kon Fhor|dh
FepuL|ic cf lnccne:ic
H.E. Amb. Nguroh Swojoyo
CFF /SE/N
Lcc FDF
H.E. Amb. Lotsomy Keomony
Mc|cy:ic
H.E. Doto' Hosnud|n Homzoh
FepuL|ic cf Ihe Unicn cf Mycnmcr
H.E. b M|n Lw|n
FepuL|ic cf Ihe Fhi|ippine:
Vocont

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CFF /SE/N
FepuL|ic cf Singcpcre
H.E. Amb. L|m Ihuon Kuon
Kingccm cf Ihci|cnc
H.E. Suvot Ch|ropont
Sccic|i:I FepuL|ic cf VieIncm
H.E. Mr. Vu Dong Dung
Annex #5
List of Participants
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Table of Contents
List of Partcipants
The Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue
No Name INsTITuTIoN
1 Chang Jordan Womens Legal & Human Rights Bureau (WLB) Philippines
2 Innakhone Vorachak SAEDA, Laos
3 Felix Sharief The Britsh Embassy Jakarta
4 Fikri Jufri Tempo, Indonesia
5 Kyaw Lin Oo Myanmar People Forum, Myanmar
6 Laphai Zau Sam Shalom, Myanmar
7 Irenevieve Paterson The Australian Embassy
8 Yuyun Wahyuningrum HRWG, Indonesia
9 Heinz Walker-Nederkoom The Switzerland Embassy
10 Stefani Kungs The Switzerland Embassy
11 Nicholas Oliver ICRC
12 Tri Wahono Wahana Tata, Indonesia
13 Pranee Thiparat Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
14 Herman Kraf University of Philippines, Philippines
15 Jogi J. Suhud UNDP, Indonesia
16 Taufqurrahman PERLUDEM, Indonesia
17 Sok Sam Oeun CDP, Cambodia
18 Syamsiah PD Politk, Indonesia
19 Tang Siew Mun Insttute of Strategic and Internatonal Studies, Malaysia
20 Dr. Hasan Wirajuda Wantmpres (The Ofce of Vice-President)
21 Vivi Feriyany Wantmpres (The Ofce of Vice-President)
22 Thomas Zehetner Austrian Embassy
23 Fernando F. Aguayo Embassy of Spain
24 Thi Phuong Thao Vu Insttute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment
(iSEE), Vietnam
25 Yusdiana AGENDA, Indonesia
26 Hadi Amitoso Kemenko Kesra (Coordinaton Ministry of Social Welfare)
27 Chao Thao Womens Legal Educaton Associaton, Laos
28 Dang Dinh Bach The Law and Policy Sustainable Development Research
Center, Vietnam
Annex #5
Annex #5
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Table of Contents
No Name INsTITuTIoN
29 Pengiran Hajah Zabaidah
Kamaludin
Brunei Social Welfare Council, Brunei Darussalam
30 Sauyah Hj Kura Council of Women of Brunei Darussalam
31 Kartka Indah LSM Peduli Buruh Migran, Indonesia
32 Emma Potchapornkul Peoples Empowerment Foundaton, Thailand
33 Soun Bunsak CHRAC, Cambodia
34 Nguyen Phu Tan Huong Diplomatc Academy of Vietnam
35 ChristophSeeman German Embassy
36 Bhatara Ibnu Reza Imparsial, Indonesia
37 M e i d y a t a m a
Suryodiningrat
The Jakarta Post, Indonesia
38 Syamsul Tarigan UNDP, Indonesia
39 Dian Ashar AICHR-Indonesia Ofce
40 Daniel Derzic Switzerland Embassy
41 Agung Wasono Partnership, Indonesia
42 Sinapan Samydorai Think Center, Singapore
43 Arief Opini.co.id, Indonesia
44 Tantowi Anwari SEJUK, Indonesia
45 Evan Lausmana CSIS, Indonesia
46 Ari Nugroho Info Bank, Indonesia
47 Hera Khaerani Media Indonesia, Indonesia
48 Nurun Nisa The Wahid Insttute, Indonesia
49 Yuliasri The Jakarta Post, Indonesia
50 Puspa Dewi Solidaritas Perempuan, Indonesia
51 Rafendi Djamin AICHR/ HRWG, Indonesia
52 Orchida AKSI, Indonesia
53 Marhaini Nasuton AKSI, Indonesia
54 Daniel Awigra HRWG, Indonesia
55 Lina Alexandra CSIS, Indonesia
56 Wieke Afendy Atmajaya University, Indonesia
57 Clara Juwono CSIS, Indonesia
58 Rizal Sukma CSIS, Indonesia
Annex #5
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Table of Contents
aseaN Community Dialogue
No Name RepReseNTaTIve
1 H.E. Emaleen Abdul Rahman Teo Brunei Darussalam
2 H.E. Amb. Kan Pharidh Cambodia
3 H.E. Mr. I Gede NgurahSwajaya Indonesia
4 Mr. Sitsangkhom Sisaketh Lao PDR
5 H.E. Dato Hasnudin Hamzah Malaysia
6 H.E. U Min Lwin Myanmar
7 Ms. Ma. Teresita C. Daza Philippines
8 H.E. Amb. Lim Thuan Kuan Singapore
9 H.E. Mr. Suvat Chirapant Thailand
10 H.E. Mr. Vu Dang Dung Viet Nam
11 Jusuf Wanandi CSIS
12 Rizal Sukma CSIS
13 Chang Jordan Womens Legal & Human Rights Bureau (WLB) Philippines
14 Innakhone Vorachak SAEDA, Lao
15 Kyaw Lin Oo Myanmar People Forum, Myanmar
16 Laphai Zau Sam Shalom, Myanmar
17 Yuyun Wahyuningrum HRWG, Indonesia
18 Pranee Thiparat Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
19 Herman Kraf University of Philippines
20 Sok Sam Oeun CDP, Cambodia
21 Tang Siew Mun Insttute of Strategic and Internatonal Studies, Malaysia
22 Thi Phuong Thao Vu Insttute for Studies of Society, Economy and Environment
(iSEE), Vietnam
23 Chao Thao Womens Legal Educaton Associaton, Laos
24 Dang Dinh Bach The Law and Policy Sustainable Development Research
Center, Vietnam
25 Pengiran Hajah Zabaidah
Kamaludin
Brunei Social Welfare Council
26 Sauyah Hj Kura Council of Women of Brunei Darussalam
27 Emma Potchapornkul Peoples Empowerment Foundaton, Thailand
28 Souun Bunsak CHRAC, Cambodia
29 Nguyen Phu Tan Huong Diplomatc Academy of Vietnam
30 Sinapan Samydorai Think Center, Singapore
31 Rafendi Djamin AICHR, Indonesia
32 Daniel Awigra HRWG, Indonesia
33 Lina Alexandra CSIS, Indonesia
34 Raditya M. Kusumaningprang CPR Indonesia Ofce

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Annex #6
2011s Civil Societys Recommendations
to the ASEAN Secretary General
Table of Contents
Civil Societys Recommendatons to the
ASEAN Secretary General on the Promoton
and Protecton of Human Rights in ASEAN
7
Submitted in Jakarta, Indonesia on 12 July 2011
7 Submitted on the occasion of the Second Informal High Level Meeting between the ASEAN Secretary General
and Representatives of Civil Society in ASEAN, 11-12 July 2011, Jakarta, Indonesia.
1. We, civil society organizatons from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao P.D.R.,
Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, have gathered in
Jakarta, Indonesia for the Second Informal High Level Meetng between the ASEAN
Secretary General and Representatves of Civil Society in ASEAN, organized by the
Centre for Strategic and Internatonal Studies (CSIS) and the Human Rights Working
Group (HRWG) on 11-12 July 2011, to provide feedback and recommendatons to
the ASEAN Secretary General on how he can help in the promoton and protecton
of human rights in ASEAN.
2. We appreciate the commitment displayed by the ASEAN Secretary General to
contnue the process of dialogue with him. We are confdent that the ASEAN
Secretary General and civil society have a shared common understanding on the
importance of the democratc and constructve dialogue and consultaton with
stakeholders, including civil society.
3. We reiterate our recogniton of the role of the ASEAN Secretary General as an
important channel for civil society to hold ASEAN Member States accountable to
their internatonal and regional obligatons to promote, protect and fulfll human
rights as enshrined in the ASEAN Charter.
4. We welcome the move of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human
Rights to start the drafing process for an ASEAN Human Rights Declaraton that is
expected to be adopted during the ASEAN Ministerial Meetng in July 2012.
5. We see the ASEAN Human Rights Declaraton as a landmark document that will
defne the human rights architecture in the region. We are prepared to contribute
and engage with ASEAN to realize such document that will uphold internatonal
human rights standards as prescribed by the Universal Declaraton of Human
Rights, the Vienna Declaraton and Programme of Acton, and internatonal human
rights instruments to which ASEAN Member States are partes consistent with
the Terms of Reference of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human
Rights.

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6. Despite one of the principles of ASEAN being [t]o promote a people-oriented
ASEAN in which all sectors of society are encouraged to partcipate in, and beneft
from, the process of ASEAN integraton and community building, we are concerned
that there has been no insttutonalized access for civil society to engage ASEAN
at all levels. The limited access allowed by the diferent organs of ASEAN has been
very much dependent on the chairmanship of such. Thus, civil society is not able
to efectvely partcipate in ASEAN community-building.
7. We recognize that ASEAN is currently pursuing its goal of building an ASEAN
Community by 2015. We are, however, alarmed that human rights is not
mainstreamed in the Three ASEAN Community Blueprints. Worse, there has been
no synergy displayed among the three ASEAN Community Pillars that further
negatvely impact on the rights of the ASEAN peoples.
8. We renew our commitment to engage the ofcial processes of ASEAN at all levels
to be able to partcipate, contribute and ultmately beneft from the ASEAN
Community envisioned for the peoples of ASEAN.
9. We reiterate the call of many civil society organizatons and groups for the need to
have a platorm to generate new ideas and further enhance existng mechanisms
in ASEAN that deal with human rights. We have lots of ideas that can be considered
by ASEAN to further develop its emerging human rights architecture.
10. At the same tme, the following are the pressing unaddressed human rights issues
in ASEAN:
migrant workers
refugees
asylum seekers
border disputes
trafcking
climate change and environment
politcal partcipaton
discriminatory laws and practces (e.g., women and LGBTs, PWDs, IPs)
economic rights (e.g., land rights)
impunity.
Recommendations
11. We ask the ASEAN Secretary General to formally share his actons on our previous
inputs submited to him last 26 August 2009 on the occasion of the Regional
Workshop on ASEAN Forum on Human Rights.
12. We request the ASEAN Secretary General to bring to the atenton of the AICHR and
ACWC the review of the three ASEAN Community Blueprints to develop coherence
and cohesion of the ASEAN Community building process.
13. We urge the ASEAN Secretary General to encourage the development of protecton
mechanisms of human rights in ASEAN, in view of access to justce, partcularly
with the AICHR and ACWC.

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14. We support the goal of ASEAN in mainstreaming human rights in all of its actvites
and work, it becoming a shared value. Such mainstreaming of human rights can start
by partnering with civil society to gather ideas on how this goal can be realized, stll
as part of the ASEAN Community Building process. We therefore call on the ASEAN
Secretary General to introduce and further strengthen this envisioned partnership
in the ASEAN Secretariat and with all organs of ASEAN by taking concrete steps for
its realizaton.
15. We reiterate the need for human rights to be immediately mainstreamed within
the ASEAN Secretariat and its operatons. This is in recogniton of the important
and critcal role of the ASEAN Secretariat in servicing ASEAN and its Member States
and by being their repository and resource center of all ASEAN-related documents
and materials.
16. We call on the ASEAN Secretary General to encourage the diferent organs of ASEAN,
more partcularly the ASEAN Summit, the various ASEAN Ministerial Meetngs,
ASEAN Senior Ofcials Meetngs, the Commitee of Permanent Representatves,
and all other relevant human rights bodies, to insttutonalize a platorm of
dialogue with broader civil society. As such, we reiterate our previous call that any
kind of accreditaton in ASEAN should not be used to qualify who can partcipate
and who cannot. The ASEAN accreditaton guidelines must be simplifed and open
to all sectors of civil society and organizatons in the region.
17. We request the ASEAN Secretary General to identfy units in ASEAN that will receive
all communicatons and submissions by ASEAN civil society. Such units should be
responsible in disseminatng the civil society inputs to the relevant ofces within
the Secretariat and ASEAN.
18. We encourage the ASEAN Secretary General to ensure the access to informaton
of civil society to all documents, materials and informaton within the ASEAN
Secretariat, by identfying units within the ASEAN Secretariat.
19. We call on the ASEAN Secretary General to direct the relevant ofces in the ASEAN
Secretariat to regularly update civil society and the public of developments, such
as in the ASEAN website.
20. We acknowledge that all ASEAN Member States have ratfed CRC and CEDAW. We
urge the ASEAN Secretary General to develop a dedicated unit within the ASEAN
Secretariat to support the secretariat needs of the ACWC, partcularly by providing
needed data on women and childrens issues.
21. We recommend to the ASEAN Secretary General to facilitate mult-stakeholder
dialogues to address the above-mentoned regional human rights issues.
Jakarta, Indonesia, 12 July 2011

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Annex #7
2009s Civil Societys Inputs
for the ASEANs Secretary General
Table of Contents
Civil Societys Inputs for the Role of the
ASEANs Secretary General to the promoton
and protecton of human rights in ASEAN
Submitted in Jakarta, Indonesia on 26 August 2009
1. We, civil society organizatons from Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR,
Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, and from diferent
thematc issues such as child rights, gender, labor rights, migrant workers rights, the
rights of people with disability and democracy, have gathered in Jakarta, Indonesia
for the Regional Workshop on ASEAN Forum on Human Rights: Dialogue between
the ASEAN Secretariat and Southeast Asias Civil Society and Organizatons (CSOs)
organized by the Center for Strategic Internatonal Studies (CSIS) on 25 August
2009 to provide the independent inputs on human rights for the ASEAN Secretary
General (ASG) for his role on the promoton and protecton of human rights in
ASEAN.
2. We applaud this initatve as a good intenton from the good ofce of the ASEAN
Secretary General to interact with CSOs in his eforts in order to set the platorm
to prepare the reports to ASEAN leaders on the implementaton of the provision
on human rights as mandated by the ASEAN Charter and the Terms of Reference
(TOR) of ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).
3. We congratulate ASEAN for the adopton of the Terms of Reference (TOR) of ASEAN
Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) during the 42
nd
ASEAN
Ministerial Meetng (AMM) in Phuket, Thailand as a historic endeavor of ASEAN.
We are however, concerned that the TOR that has been agreed so far is fall far too
short of internatonal standards with lack of protecton mandate.
4. We believe therefore that independent, impartal, professional representatve
with high moral character, recognized competence in the feld of human rights,
and elected and/or appointed in a transparent, partcipatory and inclusive
process of consultaton with input from all stakeholders is necessary to ensure the
efectveness and credibility of the AICHR to fulfl its mandate as the overarching
body tasked with the promoton and protecton of human rights in ASEAN.
5. We welcome the new role of ASEAN Secretary General (ASG) as mentoned in the
Artcle 7.1 of the TOR AICHR, which states that The Secretary-General of ASEAN
may bring relevant issues to the atenton of the AICHR...

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6. Given the commitment of ASG that had been demonstrated since he took the
good ofce on insttutonalizing the civil societys involvement in the ASEAN
processes, we are confdence that the ASG and civil society had shared a common
understanding on the importance of that democratc and constructve dialogue
and consultaton with stakeholders including civil society should take place to
ensure the implementaton of the abovementoned Artcle.
7. We recognize that this new role is additonal but important channel for civil societys
eforts to hold ASEAN member states accountable to its internatonal obligaton to
promote, protect and fulfll human rights. We are therefore commited to support
and enrich the realizaton of this role and act as the watchdog at the same tme.
8. We civil society put forward the following principles and recommendatons to the
role of ASG to the promoton and protecton of human rights, civil societys role to
support the ASGs role, and the mechanism and modalites for cooperaton.
Principles
9. CSOs involvement should be seen as the right to partcipate in democratzaton
and good governance of ASEAN processes and decision making and as part of the
insttutonal and confdence building of the ASEAN people-centered community.
10. The partcipaton should be meaningful and respectul to the values of equality,
accountability and transparency in the form of dialogue, consultaton, discussion
with the inclusion of marginalized group in ASEAN, and insttutonalized within
ASEAN secretariats structure and practced by the ASEN Secretariats staf.
11. The involvement and partcipaton of CSOs should be guaranteed by allocatng
30% of the ASEAN secretariat annual budget.
The role of ASG to the promotion and protection of human rights
12. ASG should mainstream human rights within the ASEAN secretariat, its ASEAN
functonal body and mechanism to ensure that their programs, plan of acton,
including the politcal security, socio-cultural and economic blueprints, respond to
and address the rights of the marginalized sectors within ASEAN.
13. ASG to set the standard of human rights-based approach, applicaton and
framework in the development, implementaton and evaluaton of plans, program
of all ASEAN bodies and secretariat by conductng the human rights educaton and
discussion at regular basis for the ASEAN secretariat staf.
14. While appreciatng the role of ASG to promote and protect human rights in ASEAN,
ASG should also prevent the human rights abuses to be happened by alertng the
ASEAN Leaders on the emerging issues which will lead to the gross human rights
violaton and highlightng the roles of the human rights defenders to prevent the
issues rather than to solve them when they come.

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15. With the spirit of improving the human rights situaton in the ASEAN, ASG should
include diferent reports from stakeholders including from civil society, media and
trade union into his report on the implementaton of the ASEAN agreement as well
as on issues to the atenton of the ASEAN leaders.
16. ASG should initate for conduct of a regional study on the situaton, SG and
designated staf should dialogue with and gather informaton from CSOs. The
regional study shall serve as a guide to the ASEAN in identfying priority issues
and concerns of human rights and corresponding policy and programmatc
recommendaton.
17. Establish the protecton mechanism to reach out the marginalized group in
ASEAN by identfying and appointng Special Representatve or Rapporteur to
the ASG on thematc issues of human rights such as women, children, migrant
workers, refugees, indigenous people, stateless etc who will a) advocate for the
implementaton of ASEAN agreement; b) ensure that concerned sectors are
aware c) inform about ASEAN work; d) raise concerns issues afectng the sectors
into ASEAN decision bodies; and e) interact with CSOs representng concerned
sectors.
18. Create more spaces for CSOs and ensure its availability of the spaces by
insttutonalizing it in the ASEAN processes and its decision making.
The Role of CSOs to support the ASGs role
19. CSOs should be seen as an important element of democratzing ASEAN and should
engage and to be involved in ASEAN processes at the earliest.
20. CSOs identfed four important roles in order to support the mandate of ASG to
promote and protect human rights in ASEAN: a) as confdence-building partner of
ASEAN in ensuring the process of community integraton is meaningful, transparent
and democratc, b) as dialogue partners in human rights by providing inputs and
alternatve reports on issues retaining human rights and the implementaton
of the ASEAN agreements, c) as watchdog to hold ASEAN accountable on the
implementaton of the ASEAN agreement, the work performance of ASEAN bodies
and secretariat and insttutonal building process of ASEAN to establish community
integraton in 2015, and d) as a bridge to channel ASEAN to the people at the grass
root level by reaching out the people and maintaining networking and coaliton
building among CSOs
21. CSOs are commited to provide the regular reports on general situaton of human
rights, on issues to the atenton of the ASEAN leaders, the implementaton of the
ASEAN leaders and the work performance of the ASEAN bodies and its human
rights mechanisms using its regular work in collectng informaton on issues related
to ASEAN.

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22. CSOs may conduct joint actvites with ASEAN Secretariat in order to support
the role of ASG in promotng and protectng human rights, invite ASG and
ASEAN secretariat staf and get involved in the ASG and the ASEAN Secretariats
actvites.
23. CSO may organize public awareness actvites to introduce ASEAN, its role at the
regional level and its mechanism to people at the grass root level including to
jointly organize the exchange program with the ASEAN secretariat to create the
connecton between ASEAN and the people. This kind of actvites can be done
with the collaboraton of diferent sectors in civil society such as media, trade
union and universites.
24. CSOs should utlize the created but small space within ASEAN together with other
stakeholders by coaliton and networking building, partcularly when preparing
the reports to the ASG. In this line, CSOs will organize its self with division of labor,
appointng focal points and setng the substance of the reports.
The mechanism and modalities for cooperation
25. CSOs call for a regular consultaton twice a year with the ASG and separate
consultaton with migrant workers, children, indigenous peoples or other
marginalized groups and organizatons working on the rights of women.
26. Using the ASG dialogue with Civil Society and Organizaton as one of the annual
venue of interacton and practce to improve the communicaton of both party to
discuss the status of human rights, the states obligaton to promote, protect and
fulfll human rights its challenges and solutons.
27. In order to have inclusive, secure and free dialogue and interacton, the accreditaton
mater should not be used to qualify who can partcipate and who cannot. However,
the accreditaton guideline for CSOs to ASEAN should be simplifed and open all
sectors of civil society and organizatons in the region.
28. There should be an agreement on to what extent the ASG can use the result of the
dialogue or to forward it further to the next steps of policy changing in ASEAN. In
doing so, there should be a frank discussion on possible and measurable follow up
afer the dialogue.
29. The channel, venue, methods and procedure of communicaton and interacton
between ASG, ASEAN secretariat and CSOs should be expanded by utlizing the
available social networking providers and other technology facilites.
Jakarta, Indonesia, 26 August 2009

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Indonesias NGO Coalition for International Human Rights Advocacy

(Human Rights Working Group - HRWG), and

Report of The Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue

Report of The Jakarta Human Rights Dialogue

Report of The ASEAN Community Dialogue

Good morning everyone. First of all, on

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Annex #3: Press Release

200, JckcrIc ASFAN Fc|un cn Huncn F|gnt:.

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