3 - The ASEAN Charter

Summary

The 2004 ASEAN Summit in Vientiane decided that ASEAN was to adopt a Charter for itself. Pursuant to this decision, ASEAN leaders, meeting in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, appointed an Eminent Persons Group to draw up recommendations for the contents of the Charter.

The ten members of the EPG, one from each ASEAN member country, had different degrees of independence from their governments, but they managed to agree on a report, which the group submitted to the next ASEAN Summit in Cebu in the Philippines. The ASEAN foreign ministers then appointed a High Level Task Force of government officials to draft the Charter. It is important to remember that the drafting process was in the nature of intergovernmental negotiations, in which no one country could have its way all the time.

ASEAN's OBJECTIVES

As emerged from these negotiations and as signed by the leaders at their summit in Singapore in November 2007, the Charter reaffirms ASEAN's purposes and principles. It makes clear ASEAN's objectives, which are:

1. • An integrated regional economy, a single market, and production base;

2. • Regional cooperation on regional problems;

3. • Regional peace, security, and stability;

4. • A Southeast Asia free of weapons of mass destruction;

5. • The alleviation of poverty;

6. • Sustainable development; and

7. • The development of an ASEAN identity.

Norms for Domestic Governance

The norms laid down in the Charter include not only long-standing ones governing interstate behaviour:

1. • The non-use of force or threats of force;

2. • The peaceful settlement of disputes; and

3. • Non-interference in internal affairs.