SE Asian Faux Human Rights Effort
October 26, 2009
The Wall Street Journal editorializes today about the new human rights council created by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), about which it is very skeptical:
Like its United Nations equivalent, it’s a toothless body, but it can still do damage to the cause it’s supposed to serve.
Asean members aspire for the council to be “a vehicle for progressive social development and justice, the full realization of human dignity and the attainment of a higher quality life for Asean peoples,” according to their inaugural declaration. These are worthy goals.
But Asean is a broad church that includes countries like Burma and Laos that want to rubber-stamp their authoritarian regimes, not submit to real scrutiny….Commissioners include Kyaw Tint Swe, the Burmese ambassador to the U.N. who has long defended the junta’s rights record there, and Brunei’s Abdul Hamid Bakal, a Shariah court judge. The commission operates by consensus and its mandate focuses on promoting human rights, not protecting them.
Meanwhile in Cambodia, UN human rights watchdogs were removed from the National Assembly before voting for a new criminal libel law that is designed to restrict press freedom and silence opposition to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
