ASEAN Member States Research Articles

The Contribution of Profit and Loss Sharing (PLS) Financing For MSMEs of ASEAN Member States in the New Normal Post-Covid 19

COVID-19 has challenged the Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises which are the backbone of the ASEAN Member States’ (AMS) economic growth. Profit and Loss Sharing (PLS) as a bank financing scheme offers an alternative model with flexibility in meeting the Covid-19 economic crisis by providing equity orientation for the MSMEs. This research aimed to investigate the contribution of PLS in supporting the MSMEs’ economic recovery packages in the AMS during the New Normal post Covid-19. For this purpose, this research posits the comparative evidence of PLS contribution by gathering data from the central banks, financial authorities, commercial banks and literature reviews related to economic recovery policies in the AMS. The result indicates that PLS can provide an alternative model for supporting MSMEs by allowing all parties to share both risks and losses in their capital input ratio.

Social Media, Fake News, and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Sketching the Case of Southeast Asia

As a result of lockdowns across Southeast Asia, the use of all types of social media has reached high records in the whole region. Yet, the rapid social media response manifested in the form of an infodemic – an overabundance of false and misleading information. Concurrently, the region has also witnessed a significant rise in various governmental measures targeting social media actors. In the name of combating fake news, various legal enactments, including enhanced censorship and sanctions, have been pursued by Southeast Asian authorities. These, however, are often deemed unjustified and aggressively restricting of freedom of speech and expression, especially at a time when ASEAN member states have gained notoriety for their lack of civil liberties. This article aims to reveal connections between the infodemic and legal responses in Southeast Asia on the basis of a qualitative literature review and content analysis. It looks at the term infodemic along with the proliferation of different forms of fake news in the context of Southeast Asia’s social media use. It also highlights discrepancies between legal responses and the impacts of fake news during the early days of the pandemic.

Improving the Freedom of Repairing Telecommunication Submarine Cables in Southeast Asia

Abstract In October 2019, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (asean) Telecommuni cation and Information Technology Ministers adopted the asean Guidelines for Strengthening Resilience and Repair of Submarine Cables. This is the first instrument relating specifically to telecommunication submarine cables under asean. This represents an important increase of awareness by asean about a swift process for submarine cables repairing. However, the Guidelines recognise that coastal States can grant permits over the repair of submarine cables in waters where they have sovereign rights and jurisdiction, an approach also adopted by many asean Member States. This article argues for an improvement of the freedom of repairing submarine cables in the region in order to expedite the repair of submarine cables in Southeast Asia. It does so by identifying what can be improved in the process of granting permits for repairing submarine cables in asean Member States and suggesting next steps to be taken by asean.

ASEAN PLUS THREE EMERGENCY RICE RESERVE (APTERR): An Analysis on Its Role to The ASEAN Food Security in The Global Pandemic

<span id="docs-internal-guid-1b269b4f-7fff-5a10-7710-69c82c89d0ab"><span>ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve or APTERR is a rice bank cooperation between ASEAN member states as well as China, South Korea, and Japan (as +3 or Plus Three). This collective commitment is made in order to ensure food security, particularly in the form of rice, in their member countries. Initiated due to the crisis that occurred from 2007 to 2011, APTERR is now facing the global COVID-19 pandemic that has been going on for more than one year. This, of course, presents a threat to the availability of rice due to limited mobility in the production or distribution sector, while the needs of rice in the community remains the same. In this paper, we will discuss further efforts and actions that have been taken by APTERR in assisting ASEAN members who are in an emergency status in their availability of rice. The research method which this paper used is a literacy review method, which will provide facts related to the background of APTERR, problems that threaten the threat of rice in the ASEAN region, and the latest presentation data to answer whether or not the APTERR plan will succeed in overcoming this pandemic crisis.</span></span>

Humanitarian diplomacy in ASEAN

Progress on regional cooperation in Southeast Asia is often punctuated by decades rather than years. The exposure of the wider Asia-Pacific to natural hazards renders it the world’s most disaster prone. Since the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, there have been three significant broad trends that have shaped humanitarian diplomacy, namely ASEAN as a platform for engagement, sectoral approaches and a diversifying multi-stakeholder environment creating a multi-level regionalism in Southeast Asia. States and societies in Southeast Asia have demonstrated a commitment to building humanitarian capacity which is often termed ‘nationally led, regionally supported and international as necessary’ so that they can lead response to natural hazards. The experience of natural hazards offers an important reference for humanitarian work in other areas, notably health emergencies and conflict settings. However, the localization of the global humanitarian system beyond the regional and national levels to local communities remains far from certain, and progress made in this arena may yet come undone without sustained and substantive political commitment from ASEAN member states.

Towards an asean Model of ‘Responsibility-Sharing’ for Refugees and Asylum-Seekers

Abstract The Andaman Sea crisis of 2015 focused global attention on asean’s response to mass refugee flows and generated calls for greater regional cooperation to protect the rights and safety of forced migrants. Such calls draw from the concept of ‘responsibility-sharing’; a concept that has long underpinned the international refugee regime. Scholars have responded to this challenge by identifying a range of ways in which asean countries might benefit from sharing responsibility for the refugees and asylum-seekers in their region. Based on interviews with 40 key asean-based actors working on migration and refugee issues across the governmental and non-governmental sectors, this article seeks to understand how the concept of responsibility-sharing for refugee protection is understood in four Southeast Asian countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. While it finds common agreement among the interviewees that the Andaman Sea crisis was a humanitarian disaster and that existing approaches to refugee issues in the region are ineffective, it also finds little to suggest that a regional approach to refugee issues is likely to develop in the short-to-medium term. On the other hand, interviewees identified a wide range of mechanisms through which bilateral, multilateral and global initiatives might assist the region to deal with refugee and asylum issues. Linking refugee issues with other issues that concern asean Member States and incremental progress towards embedding regional human rights norms via asean human rights institutions are identified as the most fruitful pathways towards regional cooperation to protect refugee rights and safety.

Natural Gas as a Key Alternative Energy Source in Sustainable Renewable Energy Transition: A Mini Review

Energy security and sustainability are undeniably the main concerns in combatting climate change. While an immediate call for all-green and renewable energy seems to be impossible due to huge financial implications and inadequate supporting energy structure, an alternative to fossil fuels needs to be established. Natural gas, a naturally occurring fossil gas is a cleaner energy source option compared to other fossil fuels such as coal, bitumen, and diesel. Natural gas makes the best fit for a sustainable renewable energy transition in any country around the globe due to its competitiveness towards other fossil fuels such as coal and its ability to aid the integration of renewables. This review highlights the technological pathways of utilizing natural gas in a transition to sustainable renewable energy systems, with a focus on the natural gas components and resources point of view for ASEAN member states (AMS). Policies that support the development of natural gas as a key alternative energy source in sustainable renewable energy transition would also be reviewed. This review aims to provide a thorough guide to researchers, stakeholders, and policymakers to construct and support efficient, reliable, affordable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly energy systems utilizing the abundant inexpensive natural gas.

A Study on International Cooperation in APTERR for Food Security

This study is aimed at explicating the phenomenon of international cooperation and regional integration in case of a global crisis. To achieve the aim of this study, a well-structured questionnaire was conducted to participants at two different events. First, this study examines the relationship between food crises and the institutionalization of intergovernmental cooperation to deal with them. Second, it examines the key determining factors for the institutionalization of intergovernmental cooperation to deal with food crises. This study focuses on the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserve (APTERR) as a successful case of the institutionalization of intergovernmental cooperation to deal with food crises, and examines the above two issues by administering questionnaires to two groups of individuals: agricultural officials of the ASEAN member states who attended a seminar in Thailand (23 participants) and officials and scholars of the ASEAN member states who attended a seminar in Vietnam (22 participants) in 2018. The results show the relationship between food crises and institutionalized international cooperation, such as APTERR, among the Asian countries. First, this study reveals that certain circumstances, such as food crises, can stimulate institutionalized international cooperation, by providing a more profound insight into the complex interplays among the governments of nation-states. Second, when nations share an understanding of a common policy alternative or solution, the institutionalization of intergovernmental cooperation to deal with food crises is more likely to develop successfully. It is also confirmed that 'institutionalization of international cooperation' is possible through the sharing ofcommon policy solution under the situation of repeated and serious crises. These conditions tell us that intergovernmental cooperation such as APTERR is an exceptional phenomenon for nation-states that emphasize autonomy and independence. This study highlighted the key issues of the relationship between food crises and institutionalization of cooperation while trying to identify key determining factors in establishing an internationally coordinated mechanism for food security.

Response to reviews of Containing Contagion by Sara E. Davies

It was always known that implementing the IHR was going to be a long and difficult journey for many countries in the region, one pursued alongside other equally important health goals such as universal health care and vaccination coverage The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the cost of failing to incorporate a human rights framework as one of the essential core capacity requirements for meeting the IHR The Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Infectious Diseases (APSED) was developed to assist the two regional offices member states come to grips with the capacities required under the revised IHR I found that though there were profound differences between them, overall, ASEAN states had responded positively to the concept of shared infectious disease surveillance and the reporting of infectious disease outbreaks, both endemic and emerging diseases, to neighbouring states [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use This abstract may be abridged No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract (Copyright applies to all Abstracts )

Response of ASEAN member states to the spread of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia

This paper aims to highlight the response of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) towards COVID-19. COVID-19, which is known as the Novel Coronavirus originally from Wuhan, a city in China and has been spreading to more than 200 countries in the world within a very short time. World Health Organization (WHO) asserts that COVID-19 has been a global pandemic. It has reached out to all continents in the world. Using primary and secondary resources, this paper argues that ASEAN has significantly responded at the regional level to mitigate the pandemic. At the national level, ASEAN member states have responded it with different policies based on their domestic socio-economic, security, and political circumstances. Singapore, Philippines, and Malaysia are the countries with the highest cases of COVID-19 implementing a lockdown policy. Thailand and Indonesia apply a local lockdown policy. While Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia implement social distancing policies to protect their citizens from COVID-19. As a result, Vietnam and Malaysia succeed in suppressing the growth of COVID-19 cases. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 cases in Singapore and Indonesia, despite the government efforts to stop its spread, continue to increase as of June 2020.

Covid-19 and ASEAN: Strengthening State-centrism, Eroding Inclusiveness, Testing Cohesion

ABSTRACT The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has responded to the Covid-19 crisis in a path-dependent way. The latter is shaped by a time-tested repository of cooperation norms, which give precedence to national sovereignty. Hence, belated, ad hoc and largely declaratory collective responses to the Covid-19 crisis are business as usual and are unlikely to have disruptive effects on ASEAN’s operations. Yet member countries’ emergency measures are intensifying ongoing processes of democratic backsliding and will have negative repercussions on the grouping’s inclusiveness. They will impair advancements towards a people-oriented ASEAN. Regional cohesion will be further jeopardised by relations with China, which have intensified due to Chinese “mask diplomacy”, but are also increasingly influenced by China’s encroachments on ASEAN member states’ claims in the contested South China Sea.

Theory vs practice: Patterns of the ASEAN-10 agri-food trade

Abstract During the past decades, agricultural trade is enormously expanded. One of its driving factors is the World Trade Organization. However, regional agreements can give further trade opportunities for the participating countries. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is one of them. This article aims to give a detailed overview of ASEAN members’ agri-food trade by using the world and regional level data. The country level competitiveness is calculated by four different Balassa-type indices and highlights whether the agri-food trade (practice) of these countries is in line with the revealed comparative advantages/competitiveness of the different product groups (theory). According to the results, commodities with the highest comparative advantages overlap with the most important export products. This confirms a tight connection between theory and practice. It should also be noted that world level values are generally higher than that of the regional levels. Moreover, countries with significant agri-food production (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia) can be characterized by higher comparative advantages compared to the other ASEAN member states. These results can help to better understand these countries’ trade specialization and international trade performance.

Should ASEAN Antitrust Laws Emulate European Competition Policy?

Recent years have seen the ASEAN members embark upon various initiatives that seek to harmonize their competition regimes. These ongoing efforts to modernize and harmonize ASEAN competition laws take place amid a longstanding effort by both the European Union and the United States to export their respective competition laws throughout the world. This raises a critical question: should the ASEAN countries attempt to mimic the competition re-gimes of other developed nations, notably those that are in force in the EU and the US? And, if so, which one of these regimes should they draw more inspiration from? This paper seeks to dispel the myth that the European model of competition enforcement would necessarily provide a superior blueprint. To the contrary, it shows that the evolutionary, common-law-like regime that has emerged in the US has many strengths that are often overlooked by con-temporary competition policy scholarship, and which might provide a particularly good fit for the economic and political realities of the ASEAN member states. The paper proceeds as follows. Section I analyzes the high-level differences between the American and European approaches to competition policy. Section II shows that the US and Europe also differ substantially in terms of the conduct that may constitute an infringement of competition law — the EU system being significantly more restrictive. Section III turns to the thorny problem of digital platforms, in particular, and argues that while the European model might more readily facilitate intervention against digital platforms, the resulting cases may be detrimental to consumers and the economy more broadly. Section IV posits that reducing economic concentration — sometimes cited as a byproduct of European-style competition enforcement — should not be a self-standing goal of antitrust policy. Finally, Section V argues that many of the economic and political characteristics of the ASEAN economy cut in favor of using the US model of competition enforcement as a blueprint for further development and harmonization of ASEAN competition law.

Tindakan Pencegahan Pembakaran Hutan dalam Perspektif ASEAN Community

Artikel ini bertujuan untuk memaparkan tentang nilai-nilai ASEAN Community dalam pencegahan pembakaran hutan dan lahan melalui ASEAN Agreement Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP), dan Implementasi AATHP di Indonesia. Hal ini disebabkan karena Persoalan Kebakaran hutan dan Lahan merupakan salah satu isu utama di kawasan ASEAN, dan dampaknya menimbulkan pencemaran udara lintas batas negara yang mengakibatkan terganggunya hubungan diplomatik diantara Negara Anggota ASEAN. Padahal negara Anggota ASEAN bersepakat untuk mewujudkan ASEAN Community. Oleh karena itu, dengan menerapkan metode penelitian hukum yuridis normatif, tulisan ini hendak menjelajahi beberapa hal, yaitu pertama; bagaimana nilai-nilai nilai-nilai ASEAN Community dalam pencegahan pembakaran hutan dan lahan melalui AATHP, Kedua, bagaimana implementasi AATHP di Indonesia. Artikel ini menemukan bahwa nilai-nilai ASEAN Community telah tertuang dalam setiap pasal yang diatur dalam AATHP guna pencegahan kebakaran hutan dan lahan yang terjadi pada kawasan ASEAN, Kedua, Indonesia telah meratifikasi AATHP dan membuat produk hukum yang dapat menjangkau para pelaku pembakaran hutan dan lahan. Hal ini ditandai dengan disahkannya UU Perlindungan dan Pengelolaan Lingkungan Hidup, UU Kehutanan, UU Perkebunan, dan UU Pencegahan dan Pemberantasan Perusakan Hutan. Selain itu, di Provinsi Jambi, juga membentuk Peraturan Daerah Provinsi Jambi Nomor 2 Tahun 2016 tentang Pencegahan Dan Pengendalian Kebakaran Hutan Dan Lahan.

THE ROOT CAUSE OF TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS FOR THE PROTECTION STRATEGY IN THE ROHINGYA CRISIS

The statelessness of the Rohingya exacerbates the risk of trafficking in persons. Such risk gets bigger for the Rohingya to face during the coronavirus pandemic as safety restrictions and control are emboldened for health concerns. This paper is not to argue for the Rohingya to be or not to be nationally considered. It is due to that being nationally considered does not necessarily guarantee any persons free from trafficking in persons. Instead, this paper is to identify the root cause in order to construct the protection strategy. Thus, the international human rights are theoretically expressed in naturalistic views which are distinguished from positive rights that are inherently applied in Myanmar to bring out the identity conflict that has been the source of crisis between the minority and the majority. Also, a normative perspective of the research in this paper is expected of how international law should function, especially among the ASEAN member states. The ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children are incorporated as legal instruments throughout the identification of the root cause and the construction of the protection strategy for the Rohingya to investigate the trafficking in persons in the Rohingya crisis. It shows that statelessness and trafficking in persons are inseparable under the migration in the form of irregular movement. Furthermore, it is found that the root cause of trafficking in persons in the Rohingya crisis is the inefficiency of legal systems, because the provision cannot quite defend them.

The Plight of Refugees in ASEAN Member Countries

This paper identifies and analyzes the efforts of ASEAN member states in addressing the contemporary threats and hardships experienced by refugees. The situation is further exacerbated by the pandemic brought about by the COVID-19 coronavirus. As an international organization, ASEAN is expected to have a collective and cooperative strategy to address this. However, ASEAN member states do not exhibit large-scale collaborative efforts to resolve the plight of the refugees. Rather, mutual agreements seem to be limited to the host/transit country and the native country of the refugees. Liberal institutionalist theory that emphasizes the function of international institutions to aid multinationals cooperation in certain areas is used to explain ASEAN’s role to deal with the plight of refugees in South East Asia. It is recommended for ASEAN members to re-examine the potential of international relations in securing a safer and sustainable future for refugees.

Critical Success Factors for Data Governance of Cross-border e-Trade Data Among ASEAN Member States

Global trading partners continue to adopt increasingly more multilateral and regional trade agreements amidst an overwhelmingly paperless and digital landscape. This can create useful trade alliances and increased efficiencies of digitization, but world trade is still plagued by the near absence of a uniform, harmonised customs and clearance protocol systems which trading partners accept and adhere to. Historically, customs forms and documentation requirements all differ from one nation to the next, and from one trading bloc to another. Un-uniformity in this area thwarts swift and cost-saving exchange of goods. The EU, North America and the northern Asian nations of Japan, China and South Korea have created various constructs to rectify digital trade dissonance. Southeast Asia famously began construction of the ASW (ASEAN Single Window), a single portal protocol intended to harmonise digital trading throughout the process from origin to destination, and its various successes and continuing challenges will be explored in this article. This research article focuses on and explores critical success factors for better governance of cross-border trade in the ASEAN region by conducting a systematic literature review of data governance related to electronic data exchanges by cross-border trading partners. This study uses a realistic approach while attempting to provide a clear view of the overarching picture of the trade world’s digital exchange challenges.

Uticaji performansi trgovinskih olakšica na trgovinske tokove u Asocijaciji nacija jugoistočne Azije

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) considers trade facilitation as a driving force in forming a single market and a single production base. This paper constructs an ASEAN scorecard for measuring the performance of trade facilitation strategic plans by ASEAN member states. Next, a structural gravity model is used in the paper in order to estimate the trade facilitation performance influence on ASEAN trade flows. The fact that the indicator of easing Nontariff Barriers (NTBs) and institutional coordination, on the one hand, and the ASEAN member states' engagement indicator, on the other, had the highest enforcement scores in ASEAN in the period 2017-2019. Those two indicators also exert the biggest influence on ASEAN trade flows, especially ASEAN extra-regional trade.

THE ROHINGYA REFUGEE CRISIS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: ASEAN’S ROLE AND WAY FORWARD

The protracted humanitarian crisis in Rakhine state has forced millions of Rohingya to flee their homes from ethnic and religion persecution. Most headed to neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Bangladesh and Thailand by land or by sea across the Andaman Sea and Straits of Malacca. To date, nearly 1.2 million Rohingya live in Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar since the mass exodus in 2017. As the world’s largest refugee influx, the Rohingya crisis has affected not only Myanmar but also the neighbouring countries and ASEAN member states. For the past 40 years, ASEAN member states in particular Malaysia and Thailand have been a preferred destination for refugees seeking refuge from violence and human rights abuse. In light of this, ASEAN has adopted security mechanism as part of regional responses for addressing the crisis facing the Rohingya ethnic. This article demonstrates, first, the mechanism and responses adopted by ASEAN in handling the influx of Rohingya refugees in Southeast Asia. Second, this article scrutinizes challenges to ASEAN’s efforts and way forward to resolve the burgeoning refugee issue. By exploring these collective efforts, this article investigates the extent to which these efforts and approaches play a functional role to suppress clandestine movement of Rohingya and subsequently protect the refugees. This article obtains its data from textual analysis including media reports, policy papers, academic articles, and official statements from ASEAN and ASEAN member states. The findings conclude that concerted efforts from ASEAN, albeit limited, are significant to providing new opportunities to strengthen national and regional protection for this vulnerable population.

Economic Shocks of Covid-19: Can Big Data Analytics Help Connect the Dots

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, big data analytics (BDA) remains a signatory medium in the battle against it. Governments and policymakers alike are yet to leverage on this scalable technology in an attempt to curb the economic effects of Covid-19. The primary objective of this study is to leverage on BDA to identify economic shocks, and propose a strategic solution for economic recovery in ASEAN member states (AMS). The findings of this study suggest that BDA techniques, frameworks, and architectures are effective tools in predicting and tracking economic shocks, as well as in designing and implementing an effective economic recovery plan. This study proposes a guideline to governments and policymakers scrambling for resources and considering different options to start an economic recovery process. Our findings draw a roadmap for complex AMS economies struggling to explore options for economic recovery in the response of Covid-19. This study has extended and confirmed the knowledge and perception about harnessing BDA as a tool as well as proposed a scientific approach to design economic policies. The findings outlined in this study contribute to the pipeline of BDA’s theoretical frameworks which is expected to strengthen its novelty in data science.