ASEAN and European Human Rights Mechanisms, What Should be Improved?

Abstract

The human rights mentioned in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) are universal values agreed upon countries in the world. This is reflected by the fact that no state rejects the United Nations General Assembly Resolution in 1948. It is even strengthened by the ratification of two major international human rights covenants, which have binding legal powers. They are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1966. European states are legally bound to human rights through the European Human Rights Convention that is signed in 1950 and come into force in 1953. On the other hand, ASEAN states are bound to human rights as parties of ICCPR, ICESCR, and their commitment to the regional level ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights. Both in European Union and ASEAN have their own human rights mechanisms: the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). This study employed a comparison method with a normative legal research approach to compare the human rights mechanisms in Europe and in ASEAN. It also deals with the implementation of human rights protection by the states in the two regional organizations. As a result, although the two regional organizations have human rights mechanisms applied in their areas, with experiences through cases appealing to European Human Rights Courts, Europe provides more assurance and legal certainty towards individuals when a state commit human rights violations against individuals. On the other hand, the AICHR, as the equal commission in ASEAN region, tends not to have sufficient legal power in handling human rights cases occurred in its territory.