Mathew Davies

Explaining the Vientiane Action Programme: ASEAN and the institutionalisation of human rights

Abstract Existing explanations for the emergence of human rights on the political agenda in ASEAN focus either on the role of external pressure on ASEAN member states to ‘do something’, or on the way those states copied the form, but not the function, of other regional organisations such as the EU. Both approaches tacitly acknowledge that given the strong preference for intergovernmental governance displayed by ASEAN, regardless of interpretations, that it was states that drove the institutionalisation of rights forwards. Through examining in detail the causes and consequences of the Vientiane Action Programme this article disagrees with that assertion. At crucial moments before and after 2004 it was the Working Group for the Establishment of an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, a track III actor, which both inserted human rights into ASEAN discussions and forged the link between protecting those rights and the continuing success of ASEANs security goals. Through understanding the role of the Working Group as a norm entrepreneur, assisting in the localisation of human rights standards, this article suggests that existing explanations of ASEAN institutionalisation need to be revised to include a wider range of political dynamics than previously were acknowledged.

Rhetorical inaction? Compliance and the human rights council of the United Nations

The Human Rights Council of the United Nations was inaugurated in 2006 to much acclaim. Promising to defuse the tensions that had overwhelmed its maligned predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights, the council is based on the belief that depoliticizing human-rights discussions would enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations in the realm of human-rights promotion. This article investigates just what type of compliance pressure the council, particularly through its Universal Periodic Review mechanism, has been able to develop over countries through comparing the genesis and workings of the council to existing accounts of how actors influence each other in international politics. It is argued that the reforms instigated by the council may have shifted the system away from the overt politicization previously experienced, but they have certainly not removed totally the role of state politics in rights promotion. As such, they represent conceptually a middle position, identified by Thomas Risse, known as “rhetorical action.” Identifying this allows for an analysis of the potential success of the council, as existing accounts of this type of compliance pressure have developed “scope conditions” about what the precursors for successful compliance are. Using these conditions, the article concludes that the councils prospects may not live up to the acclaim that surrounded its creation.

States of Compliance?: Global Human Rights Treaties and ASEAN Member States

The status of human rights in Southeast Asia is under increasing scrutiny as the process of community building culminates in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). National, regional, and external civil society actors now populate the ASEAN “human rights space” pressuring member governments and ASEAN institutions. This article investigates the status of human rights in the 10 member states of ASEAN by presenting the patterns of ratification, reservation, and fulfillment of the core global human rights treaties. This analysis suggests that, despite a growing number of treaty ratifications, compliance with the standards those treaties include remains elusive. Reservations, resistance to the optional protocols, and nonsubmission of reports to the relevant treaty bodies suggest that ratification has not led to full compliance. The article concludes that Southeast Asian states will continue to diversify with regard to human rights, placing great strain not only on the AICHR but ASEAN itself.

A community of practice: explaining change and continuity in ASEAN's diplomatic environment

Abstract Despite change in the aims, institutions and informal diplomacy of ASEAN since 1997, the formal diplomatic code of conduct remains locked in a traditionalist mode first outlined in the 1970s. Existing approaches from mainstream International Relations theorising are unable to adequately explain this continuity and change. The recent ‘practice turn’ in theorising offers distinct explanatory advantage, which this article illustrates by arguing that the formation of an ‘ASEAN rationality’ between 1967 and 1997 fundamentally curtailed the ability of regional diplomats to revise ASEAN post 1997, resulting in the coexistence of new and old norms in ASEANs organisation design.

Realising Rights: How Regional Organisations Socialise Human Rights

Introduction 1. The puzzle of regional organisations and rights socialisation 2. The regional organisation, socialisation, and membership nexus 3. ASEAN and Myanmar 4. OAS and Panama 5. EU and Turkey 6 Conclusions: Overview and Policy Relevance

Regional organisations and enduring defective democratic members

Instead of asking whether regional organisations can promote democracy, a well-established conclusion, this article asks what type of democracy regional organisations can promote. Where their commitments to democracy are weak, regional organisations can promote the transition away from authoritarianism but cannot drive that process to completion with the creation of embedded liberal democracies. Under such circumstances regional organisations serve as regimes of bounded toleration, and can provide regional linkages that sustain defective democracies. Through examining the relationship between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Myanmar, three supporting roles are identified; regional legitimacy, defence from external pressure, and future-oriented accommodation. The presence of these linkages between defective democracies and regional organisations provides a caveat to the positive assessments of regional organisations as socialisers of democracy.

The ethics of scholarship in a changing region

Peoples and states in the Asia-Pacific face acute and overlapping insecurities: competition between countries; domestic violence, instability, and poverty; normative contestation between local and global values; and susceptibility to climate change and natural disasters. Tensions in the region are amplified by complex issues of history and memory, with scholars playing important roles in defending and challenging competing narratives. Meanwhile, universities have become increasingly neoliberalised, which has led to considerable revisions in terms of how the core functions of academics—research, teaching, administration, and outreach—are framed, measured, and rewarded. What does this all mean for those of us working in these contexts? This broad question motivated a pair of roundtable discussions held on 25th–27th June 2016 at the ISA (International Studies Association) Asia-Pacific conference at University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong and at the Seventh Oceanic Conference on International Studies in Brisbane at University of Queensland, Australia on 4th–6th July 2016. The intent was not to outline or defend a specific ethic of scholarship, but to reflect on how each of us understands our own role and responsibilities. One unresolved issue is how relevant the specific context of the Asia-Pacific is: are there unique or distinct features to this region that create specific demands on us as academics? Here the contributors diverge: for some, regional issues clearly shape their reflections; for others, their responses connect to more general disciplinary concerns. There is now a growing debate about whether the discipline of International Relations (IR) has lost its way, with concern about it splintering into narrow sub-fields while failing to provide influential ideas or big theories (Dunne, Hansen, and Wight 2013; Jahn 2016; Rosenberg 2016). These big questions remain important, but so do the seemingly smaller but equally significant ones about how each of us reconciles the competing demands we face as researchers, as teachers, as employees, as colleagues, as friends, and as people. In presenting these reflections, the aim of the forum is to show how some of us engage with these basic dilemmas, and in doing so, encourage further discussion around how we should study and practice IR.

The legacy of Atatürk: the limits of conditionality in Turkish European Union membership negotiations

There exists a significant and sustained difference between the ability of the European Union to successfully socialise those member states who have joined since the fall of Communism, and its apparent inability to similarly socialise Turkey. Despite some impressive legal and constitutional reforms since 2001, a key shortcoming remains, the unwillingness of many in the Turkish judiciary to implement those revised standards in a consistent way. Existing explanatory accounts of this inability would focus on the credibility of the Union offer of membership, the duration of negotiations or the importance of Turkish domestic standards. None of these, however, are able to account for why Turkey seems to occupy a half way position, exhibiting reformed laws but unreformed legal practice. To address this shortcoming this article shall combine existing scholarship on the importance of domestic normative contestation within Turkey with an appraisal of the shortcomings of the Unions conditionality policy itself that emerge from the conceptual studies of conditionality.