MELBOURNE, Dec 4 (The Jakarta Post) - There have been two recent important moments to remember in relation to women’s rights in Southeast Asia: the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration on Nov. 18 and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on Nov. 25. In the context of ASEAN, a fundamental issue to be borne in mind is the direction of women’s rights. ...

Fifty-five civil society organisations have deplored the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration at the ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Nov. 18. They issued the following press statement below: ...

JAKARTA, Nov 14 (The Jakarta Post) - The United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights Navanethem Pillay has called on ASEAN leaders to suspend the adoption of the first-ever human rights declaration. ...

BANGKOK, Nov 5 (The International Federation for Human Rights) - In a letter sent today to ASEAN Heads of State, leading international human rights organizations called for the postponement of the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, pointing out that in its current form, the Declaration falls short of existing international human rights standards and risks creating a sub-standard level of human ...

JAKARTA, Oct 29 (The Jakarta Post) - Civil society groups in ASEAN have expressed disappointment over the content and process of the first-ever ASEAN human rights declaration, which aims to ensure human rights protection for 600 million people in the region. ...

The Asia-Pacific remains the only UN-defined region that does not adhere to its own human rights treaty or possess a region-wide mechanism for the promotion and protection of human rights. ...

JAKARTA, Oct 8 (The Jakarta Post) - There were two meetings recently concerning two regional human rights mechanisms, which are important for Indonesia’s foreign policy. The first meeting was the 8th ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) in Brunei Darussalam on Aug. 24-26, 2012. The second was the 2nd Independent and Permanent Human Rights C ...

In this Sep.26 open letter, human rights activists argue that "serious flaws" in the draft ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, set to be adopted by ASEAN later in the year, must be addressed. If not, they say, the declaration would "not bode well for the reputation and credibility" of the ASEAN human rights mechanism. ...

In this July 2012 statement, the South-east Asia Women's Caucus on ASEAN argues that the phrase 'public morality' has no place in the draft ASEAN Human Rights Declaration because it can too easily be used to violate the rights of women and girls. ...

It has been five years since ASEAN adopted a declaration to protect and promote migrant workers’ rights, but it still has not managed to hammer out a legally binding instrument to implement this path-breaking declaration. Critics say ASEAN is much more friendly to business than to its own migrant workers, prompting one to call it “schizophrenic”. Vera Files’ Tess Bacalla reports on ASEAN’s uphill climb to c ...