BANGKOK ? There are still, as far as I know, ongoing demonstrations by Thais opposed to the incumbent government. The state of emergency has been lifted, but we were told that the ?physical confrontations? between police and demonstrators took place in the immediate area around the government center. The latest news footage I viewed showed the anti-government protesters seated on monobloc chairs beneath sodden tents, looking truly miserable. But whether this is because of the inclement weather or because Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej still refuses to step down, or will likely regain his post after his ouster by the Constitutional Court, I don?t know. Anyway, it is a ?People Power? uprising that most of Bangkok seems to be ignoring.
I am in this country to take part in the Regional Consultation on the ASEAN Commission on Women and Children and the ASEAN Human Rights Body. The meeting is actually speculative, because neither the commission nor the human rights body has been created yet. The ASEAN ministers, and a ?high-level panel? of experts appointed by the member-states, have been meeting, sometimes with and sometimes without, the participation of civil society groups, to map out plans on the creation of such bodies. Although at this point the question of whether to create a single human rights mechanism within ASEAN?with women?s and children?s rights subsumed under it?is still being hotly debated, with the old bugaboos of tokenism and sublimation of gender to politics beginning to hover in the edges of discussion.
Ray Paolo Santiago, program manager of the non-government Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, points out that at this point, a human rights commission or committee within ASEAN ?is just an idea,? while the Commission on the Protection of the Rights of Women and Children has been mandated since 2004 (in the Vientiane Declaration). Once the ACWC is up and running, he suggested, the body ?could be used to open doors to the establishment of a human rights body within ASEAN.?
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A briefing paper based on a broader study conducted by a group of academics from Mahidol University here says that ASEAN has been historically leery of tackling the issue of human rights, given the varying degrees of adherence to and championing of democracy and civil liberties within the regional grouping.
But, after the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, where participants highlighted the need to set up a regional human rights protection mechanism in different regions, the ASEAN ministers began to discuss ways to address human rights issues, including ?considering the establishment of an appropriate regional human rights mechanism.?
Of course, it?s been 15 years since then, and ASEAN member-states are still ?considering? the creation of such a human rights institution. But waiting for ASEAN to reach consensus on a certain issue and implement ways to deal with it can be, as another participant put it, ?excruciating.? ?One could grow old waiting for ASEAN to act on your advocacies,? she added. There is even talk at this point that ASEAN might scrap the ACWC completely.
And even if ASEAN should decide to create the commission, which will be tasked to ?promote and protect the rights of women and children that are in conformity with international norms, taking into consideration the different cultural, religious, social and economic context in the region,? it still isn?t clear just how much power the commission might have to curb the worst forms of discrimination and exploitation, including trafficking for purposes of prostitution, prostitution itself that exploits both women and children, child labor, use of children as combatants in armed conflict, and violence against women and against children.
Moreover, all member-states have ratified both the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). These are in fact the ?international norms? that the Vientiane Declaration refers to. Some ASEAN states, though, have signified ?reservations? on certain provisions in both CEDAW and the CRC.
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So, maybe it?s even an act of grace that things are moving on the human rights dialogue within ASEAN. The series of meetings that the HLP or high-level panel of experts has been holding have been marked by quite fruitful and open consultations with civil society groups. Civil society within ASEAN itself has been organizing various consultations and fora, such as this one in Bangkok to gather views and achieve consensus.
Dr. Sriprapha Petcharamesree, chair of the Thai Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, in her presentation, set out several points that need to be included in any proposal to set up such a mechanism.
Such a body, whether a broad Human Rights mechanism, or a Commission on Women and Children, should, firstly, be ?an inter-government and independent body with legal personality,? she said. The CEDAW and CRC (as well as, perhaps, the UN Declaration on Human Rights) should also be used as the ?minimum standard? in judging whether a human rights violation occurred. The members of the regional commission, she added, while appointed by government, should compose a balance between experts on women and on children, with those sitting on the body serving full-time as much as possible. The body, she suggested, should also be equipped with a ?rapporteurship system,? that is, an independent observer who has the mandate to ?assess, advise and advocate? throughout the region on issues of human rights, particularly of women and children.
