Human Rights in ASEAN: Indonesian and International Perspectives is a collection of 13 essays that not only offers fresh new insights on the different facets of human rights and their protection in ASEAN, but also 'insider' accounts of the development of the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission for Human Rights. These valuable perspectives have never been shared publicly, and offer a view from both the state and non-governmental organisations' (NGO) perspectives. In addition to these valuable perspectives, this book offers a number of significant case studies of how human rights has been implemented, and the challenges it faces in ASEAN in general, and in Indonesia particularly.

This book focuses on how Indonesian civil society organisations interact with ASEAN to shape human rights institutionalisation in the region. Using Bourdieu-inspired constructivist IR as an analytical lens, the book argues that there are pre-reflexive norms that dominate the field of interaction in the region that shape the way civil society organisations operate. This has resulted in the diverging advocacy practices, thus complicating human rights institutionalisation process in ASEAN.

On December 31, 2015, the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ushered in a new era with the founding of the ASEAN Community (AC). The culmination of 12 years of intensive preparation, the AC was both a historic initiative and an unprecedented step toward the area's regional integration. Political commentators and media outlets, however, greeted its establishment with little fanfare. Implicitly and explicitly, they suggested that the AC was only the beginning: Southeast Asia, they seemed to say, was taking its first steps on a linear process of unification that would converge on the model of the European Union. In The Indonesian Way, Jürgen Rüland challenges this previously unquestioned diffusion of European norms. Focusing on the reception of ASEAN in Indonesia, Rüland traces how foreign policy stakeholders in government, civil society, the legislature, academe, the press, and the business sector have responded to calls for ASEAN's Europeanization, ultimately fusing them with their own distinctly Indonesian form of regionalism. His analysis reframes the nature of ASEAN as well as the discipline of international relations more broadly, writing a narrative of regional integration and norm diffusion that breaks free of Eurocentric thought.

This book reviews Southeast Asia’s National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) as part of an emerging assessment of a nascent regional human rights architecture that is facing significant challenges in protecting human rights. The book asks, can NHRIs overcome its weaknesses and provide protection, including remedies, to victims of human rights abuses? Assessing NHRIs’ capacity to do so is vital as the future of human rights protection lies at the national level, and other parts of the architecture—the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), and the international mechanism of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)—though helpful, also have their limitations. The critical question the book addresses is whether NHRIs individually or collaboratively provide protection of fundamental human rights. The body of work offered in this book showcases the progress of the NHRIs in Southeast Asia where they also act as a barometer for the fluid political climate of their respective countries. Specifically, the book examines the NHRIs’ capacity to provide protection, notably through the pursuit of quasi-judicial functions, and concludes that this function has either been eroded due to political developments post-establishment or has not been included in the first place. The book’s findings point to the need for NHRIs to increase their effectiveness in the protection of human rights and invites readers and stakeholders to find ways of addressing this gap.

Analyses the emerging human rights norms, regional institutions and enforcement mechanisms in Asia.

Written by the highly regarded diplomat Marty Natalegawa, former ambassador and foreign minister of Indonesia, this book offers a unique insider-perspective on the present and future relevance of ASEAN. It is about ASEAN’s quest for security and prosperity in a region marked by complex dynamics of power. Namely, the interplay of relations and interests among countries — large and small — which provide the settings within which ASEAN must deliver on its much-cited leadership and centrality in the region. The book seeks to answer the following questions: How can ASEAN build upon its past contributions to the peace, security and prosperity of Southeast Asia, to the wider East Asia, the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific regions? More fundamentally and a sine qua non, how can ASEAN continue to ensure that peace, security and prosperity prevail in Southeast Asia? And, equally central, how can ASEAN become more relevant to the peoples of ASEAN, such that its contributions can be genuinely felt in making better the lives of its citizens?