A Comparative Analysis for the Institutional Development of ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism

The regional organizations such as the Council of Europe (COU), the Organization of American States (OAS) and the African Union (AU) have already proven that the regional human rights mechanism is more efficient and effective for the promotion and protection of human rights at the regional level comparing to the universal human rights mechanisms available under the United Nations. In fact, the above regional human rights mechanisms have adopted both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms for the promotion and protection of human rights. On the other hand, another regional organization which is known as the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been trying to establish an ASEAN human rights mechanism since the end of the Cold War. As a result, the ASEAN has already established the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the ASEAN Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) as a human rights mechanism. And, these human rights mechanisms are found ineffective and very weak due to different reasons such as the ineffective function and mandate, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states in case of gross human rights violations, non-judicial approach and so on. Thus, the article presents an in-depth analysis of the existing ASEAN human rights mechanism especially the ASEAN Charter, the Term of Reference (TOR) of the AICHR and the Terms of Reference (TOR) of the ACWC connected with the establishment of ASEAN human rights mechanism, and the purpose, principle, function, mandate and so on of both AICHR and ACWC. Furthermore, the article compares the ASEAN human rights mechanism with the European, Inter-American and African human rights mechanism. Through the analyzation and the comparison, this article finds out the problems, present crises and different barriers of the existing ASEAN human rights mechanism and gives suggestion to establish judicial organs such as a special human rights tribunal, merging different special human rights tribunals into a single ASEAN Court of Human Rights or the ASEAN Court of Human Rights for establishing an appropriate ASEAN human rights mechanism.