Southeast Asia’s human rights institutions and the inconsistent power of human rights

Abstract

This article argues that continuing ambivalence about the importance of rights in Southeast Asia is not based on a perception that rights are a hegemonic ideological imposition of the West, or on a desire on the part of some states to preserve the ability to treat domestic populations however they wish, unhampered by the constraints of international human rights law. Instead, I contend that ambivalence has to do with uncertainty in the application of rights. I use two case studies (Brunei’s introduction of a strict form of Islamic law in 2013; and the attack by Myanmar’s military forces on the country’s minority Muslim population, the Rohingya, in 2017) to test whether rights in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Human Rights Declaration can be specified to an extent that would allow the Declaration to fulfill its role as a common framework for human rights cooperation in Southeast Asia.