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AI: An
open letter to ASEAN Foreign Ministers
Amnesty
International
20 Feb
08
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA03/001/2008
Your
Excellencies,
Amnesty International would like to take the
opportunity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
Foreign Ministers' Retreat, being held in Singapore on 19-20
February, to call for the timely establishment of an effective
and independent human rights body in the ASEAN region.
Amnesty
International has welcomed the inclusion of a commitment to the
realization of human rights in the ASEAN Charter, which was
signed at the 13th ASEAN summit in November 2007. The
organisation also noted with satisfaction the commitment within
Article 14 of the Charter to establish a regional human rights
body.
As you will know, Article 14 charged the Foreign
Ministers of the ASEAN member states with the task of determining
the terms of reference for this human rights body, and it is in
this context that Amnesty International is writing to
you.
Amnesty International urges the Foreign Ministers to
ensure that a transparent and participatory process is put in
place to set up the ASEAN human rights body. In this context, the
organisation notes the vital contribution that civil society can
make to the process of drafting the human rights body's terms of
reference.
A transparent and consultative process will
give the human rights body, and the ASEAN Charter more generally,
enhanced credibility and effectiveness both regionally and
internationally.
It is our experience, accumulated over
decades of human rights work all over the world, that the work of
regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms is
greatly enriched by input from human rights defenders and civil
society. Such mechanisms often rely in part on civil society
information on the general human rights situation or on
individual cases that is not potentially compromised by political
motivations, for contacts with victims of human rights violations
and more.
It is therefore vital that civil society is
included from the beginning in the process, and we call on you to
harness the expertise of civil society, and ensure that effective
avenues are opened to enable broad and meaningful participation
in the process of setting up the human rights body.
This
would be accord with the declared purpose of the Charter, which
is "to promote a people-oriented ASEAN in which all sectors
of society are encouraged to participate in, and benefit from,
the process of ASEAN integration and community
building."
Amnesty International therefore urges the
Foreign Ministers to ensure the following:
(1) The human
rights body should be established within a reasonable timeframe
that allows for meaningful participation;
The Foreign
Ministers, or an independent group of experts assigned by them to
elaborate the terms of reference of the human rights body, should
consult widely, including with representatives of human rights
defenders, women's organizations, minority groups, indigenous
people, trade unions and other sectors of society;
(2)
Draft terms of reference of the human rights body should be
posted on the ASEAN Secretariat website for comments by all
interested persons and organizations well in advance of their
finalisation.
(3) Amnesty International calls on the
Foreign Ministers to establish an effective, independent and
robust ASEAN human rights body, in order inter alia to achieve
the vision set forth in the Charter to "live in a region of
lasting peace, security and stability, sustained economic growth,
shared prosperity and social progress". The organisation has
previously issued a number of recommendations on the substance of
the human rights body, which are reiterated below.
(4) The
ASEAN human rights body must itself be – or else, if
representative of governments, must have the power to appoint -
an independent, impartial, competent, well-resourced,
professional institution, whose membership reflects the region's
diverse peoples and cultures as well as gender parity. Members
should be nominated and elected in a transparent process
involving civil society at every stage of the proceedings.
As
for its tasks and responsibilities, as a minimum, the human
rights body should:
(1) Work for and provide advice on the
ratification and implementation of human rights and international
humanitarian law treaties, including establishing effective
training;
(2) Encourage and support states parties' timely
and adequate reporting to UN human rights treaty-monitoring
bodies;
(3) Urge member states to invite UN Special
Procedures to visit and to provide them with full assistance and
access;"
(4) Encourage states to implement
recommendations of UN treaty bodies and Special Procedures, and
provide advice regarding such implementation;
(5)
Encourage the establishment and operation of national human
rights institutions in all ASEAN countries in accordance with the
UN Principles relating to the status of national institutions
(the "Paris Principles");
(6) Examine, with the
support of independent experts, specific human rights situations,
in response to submissions by individuals, organisations or
states, or on its own motion ;
(7) Develop tools and
materials for human rights education and help member states in
providing human rights education and training, both for state
officials and for the public as a whole; and
(8) Work with
and provide advice to national and regional human rights
defenders, as well as ensuring that states allow them to carry
out their work unhindered.
(9) The human rights body must
be given the effective authority and adequate resources in order
to carry out these tasks.
Finally, Amnesty International
strongly recommends that the human rights body's initial mandate
should be phrased so as to allow the future development,
expansion and elaboration of an ASEAN mechanism for the promotion
and protection of human rights in the region.
Yours
Sincerely,
Tim Parritt
Acting Asia-Pacific Director
Amnesty
International
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