Abstract

The ASEAN’s Charter’s adoption of human rights and the rule of law as fundamental principles to which ASEAN has committed itself marked a watershed moment that brought human rights squarely onto the ASEAN agenda. The subsequent creation of 2 human rights bodies, the AICHR and the ACWC, provided institutional mechanisms to, in principle, implement these Charter provisions. The ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) and the ASEAN Convention on Trafficking in Persons (ACTIP) added building blocks to what could eventually become a regional human rights framework. Hailed by some and repudiated by others, the ASEAN human rights regime has now been in place for almost 15 years. What actual impact has this regime had on the major human rights issues that the citizens of many ASEAN Member States face? What has been the response to the criticism that ASEAN human rights institutions talk a lot but accomplish little? The drafting process to reconsider the TOR of the AICHR is now underway. What, realistically, can we hope for in the outcome of this process to strengthen this key institution?

About the Speaker

David Cohen is the founding director of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University and previously the founding director of the War Crimes Studies Center at UC Berkeley, where he taught for more than 30 years before moving to Stanford as the WSD Handa Professor in Human Rights and International Justice, Professor of Classics, and Professor in Environmental and Behavioral Sciences.

Over the past 2 decades, Cohen has designed and led trial monitoring, rule of law, judicial training, legal education, transitional justice and human rights projects and programs in Indonesia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, India, Philippines, Singapore, and Cambodia. In the last 15 years, his work has focused primarily on Southeast Asia, both at the national and ASEAN levels. Together with the Indonesian Institute for an Independent Judiciary, he co-directs ongoing research projects and judicial training programs on the rule of law, human rights, and international criminal law with the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the National Human Rights Commission, and other agencies in Indonesia.

In Cambodia, he has led community outreach, trial monitoring, and judicial training projects with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (ECCC) since 2006. He has also engaged with the ASEAN Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission and other ASEAN bodies on human trafficking, modern day slavery, rule of law, and related issues. He currently assists the ASEAN Council of Supreme Court Chief Justices (CACJ) in developing ASEAN judicial training programs. He has published books, articles and reports on a wide range of legal history, human rights, international criminal law, and transitional justice issues.