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32. Human Rights and Regional Order
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Human Rights and Regional Order 153 By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville 32. HUMAN RIGHTS AND REGIONAL ORDER AMITAV ACHARYA Reprinted in abridged form from Amitav Acharya, “Human Rights and Regional Order: ASEAN and Human Rights Management in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia”, in Human Rights and International Relations in the AsiaPacific Region, edited by James T. H. Tang (London: Pinter (an imprint of Continuum International Publishing Group), 1995), pp. 167–82, by permission of the author and Continuum International Publishing Group. THE POST-COLD WAR HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA IN ASEAN The ASEAN states consider the rising prominence of human rights in recent years as a direct result of the end of the Cold War. The anti-communist thrust of Western policy, which tolerated blatant human rights abuses by pro-Western Asian governments in the past, is no more. Instead, the promotion of human rights constitutes the core element of the ‘New World Order’. As Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s elder statesman, put it in an Asian context: Unfortunately, with the end of the Cold War, U.S. policies toward China, Japan and the countries of East Asia have not been guided by strategic and economic considerations as they used to be. Issues of human rights and democracy have become an obsession with the U.S. media, Congress and the administration.1 The relatively simplistic East-West geopolitical framework of the Cold War period has shifted to a more complex setting in which North-South conflicts over humanitarian norms have become the major faultline of the international system with direct bearing on the economic, social and political conditions in the developing countries. Some ASEAN policy-makers see the promotion of universal human rights standards by Western countries as a highly selective exercise. Singapore’s Foreign Minister Wong Kan Seng argues that ‘Concern for human rights [in the West] has always been balanced against other national interests’.2 Attesting to ‘hypocrisy’ in the West’s application of its human rights standards, the case of Western concern for Saudi Arabia has been contrasted with Algeria, where the Western governments acquiesced with a military coup which overthrew an elected government with a strongly Islamic orientation.3 The enforcement of human rights standards by the West is therefore seen not only as selective, but also intensely political. Ali Alatas, Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, wondered whether or not the 032 AR Ch 32 22/9/03, 12:45 PM 153 154 Amitav Acharya By: ROS Size: 7.5" x 10.25" J/No: 03-14474 Fonts: New Baskerville West’s human rights campaign might have been designed to ‘serve as a pretext to wage a political campaign against another country ’.4 Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed has provided his own answer to this question by casting human rights as an instrument of dependency. Citing the example of Eastern Europe, Mahathir contended that the campaign of human rights and democracy is a prescription for disruption and chaos in weaker countries, a campaign which makes the target ever more dependent on the donor nations of the West. Furthermore, the Western campaign for human rights is regarded as reflective of the power disparities in the international system. As the Malaysian Foreign Minister Ahmed Badawi put it: ‘Attempts to impose the standard of one side on the other... tread upon the sovereignty of nations.’5 As the current Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, Indonesia also warned: In a world where domination of the strong over the weak and interference between states are still a painful reality, no country or group of countries should arrogate unto itself the role of judge, jury and executioner over other countries on this critical and sensitive issue.6 The characterization of the West’s human rights campaign as being selective and selfseeking is followed by a plea against accepting the definition of human rights in terms of Western values, norms and application procedures. ‘Human rights questions,’ contends Singapore, ‘do not lend themselves to neat general formulas.’7 Instead, as the Thai prime minister argued, implementation of human rights should ‘vary because of differences in socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds’.8 At the Bangkok Regional Preparatory Meeting, ASEAN worked with other like-minded Asian countries (including China) to draft a declaration which stated that human rights ‘must be considered in the context of a dynamic and evolving process of international norm-setting, bearing in mind the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical...