Asean Human-Rights Pledge Leaves Critics Cool

By CHUN HAN WONG

PHNOM PENH—Southeast Asian leaders signed their first-ever joint declaration on human rights, a landmark in a region whose governments are often criticized for curtailing freedom—but rights groups dismissed it as inadequate.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations' declaration—adopted at the 10-member group's summit in Cambodia—isn't legally binding, and officials described it as an initial step in improving civil liberties. Rights groups, including the United Nations rights watchdog, said the pledge contains language inconsistent with international law and allows governments to suppress rights by claiming the needs of security, public order or morality.

The Asean declaration comes ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit Monday to Phnom Penh for the East Asia Summit. Several U.S. lawmakers, including Sens. Patrick Leahy and John McCain, and leading nongovernmental organizations have called on Mr. Obama to use his visit—the first to Cambodia by a sitting U.S. president—to pressure countries in the region for human-rights improvements.

With reference to international instruments like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Asean Human Rights Declaration recognizes the equality and dignity of all citizens and their entitlement to equal protection by the law. It also acknowledges the rights of vulnerable groups including women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and migrants.

At a news conference Sunday, Asean Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said the pledge marks a commitment to promoting human rights "in our own way," and "can be used to monitor the practice, the protection and the promotion of human rights" in Asean countries, home to 600 million people.

While some NGOs welcomed the declaration's opposition to human trafficking, torture, arbitrary arrest and child labor, they also pointed to the limits it places on citizens' freedoms, including in its assertion that they should be balanced with citizens' duties to their countries.

"This is a declaration of state power, rather than of human rights," said Yuval Ginbar, legal adviser to Amnesty International. "Under this document, governments can cite specific domestic conditions to justify rights violations—this flies in the face of international law."

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has also expressed disappointment, criticizing the bloc earlier this month for not consulting widely with the public when drafting the pledge.

"Restrictions on rights should not be applied through a blanket clause or in the name of regional or national particularities," she said.

Such criticisms prompted Asean diplomats on Saturday to insert a clause stating that the declaration would be implemented in accordance with international benchmarks, even as they defend the document as a sign of progress.

"Given where Asean has been in the past in terms of human rights, I think this is a very important document that sets a number of expectations (and) standards," Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa told reporters Saturday.

Critics weren't placated. "It's too little, too late," said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division. "They've set up loopholes right at the outset in the (declaration's) general principles, which don't comply with international standards." The declaration, he said, "will become the No. 1 excuse for Asean leaders when they get accused of rights abuses in future."

Asean first addressed human-rights concerns in a 2007 charter committing to uphold international law and human rights, but rights groups said the bloc's principle of members' noninterference in each other's domestic affairs left it ill-equipped to prevent abuses. In 2009, Asean created a human-rights commission—lacking the power to investigate or punish violators.

Several Asean members continue to face accusations they violate rights.

In a report this month, Human Rights Watch said the Cambodian government has a two-decade record of killing social activists and journalists, and rights groups have accused it of disrupting their plans to stage rallies ahead of the Asean and East Asia Summits. Vietnamese courts in recent months sentenced bloggers and songwriters to up to 12 years in prison for disseminating what they ruled is antigovernment propaganda.

In Myanmar, a festering feud between Muslim Rohingyas and local Buddhists turned violent in recent weeks, killing more than 170 deaths and sending about 100,000 others, mostly Rohingyas, fleeing their homes.

Asean foreign ministers have discussed the ethnic violence, but "if that issue is not handled well and effectively, there is a risk of radicalization and the risk of extremism" arising from the conflict, Mr. Pitsuwan said in his Sunday comments.

Dipetik dari - Wall Street Journal