The ASEAN Charter and a Legal Identity for ASEAN

Summary

Introduction

After more than four decades, ASEAN is a cluster of nations seeking a legal identity. The establishment of a political and economic identity has long preceded this current exercise. From its early aims of promoting peace and cooperation in the region to the more recent establishment of an economic free trade area, ASEAN has been making its presence felt. Over the past few years, ASEAN has as a group been actively negotiating economic agreements with its trading partners. It has managed to make notable progress on these fronts since its creation, albeit without a central document such as a Charter. So why has it decided to add yet another document to its already ample collection of agreements, declarations, memoranda, and “roadmaps”? This document is meant to be, in a way, the “mother” of all ASEAN documents in the sense of providing an overall legal framework for ASEAN's existence, operations and external relations. The ASEAN Charter was conceived as a necessary step to provide “the legal and institutional framework for ASEAN”. In order to achieve this, the Charter requires all ten members to sign and ratify it.

Purposes

If one were to trace the roots of the Charter's purpose language, one finds much of these in the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on the Establishment of the ASEAN Charter. The declared purposes then were that:

• the ASEAN Charter will serve as a legal and institutional framework of ASEAN to support the realization of its goals and objectives;

• the ASEAN Charter will codify all ASEAN norms, rules, and values and reaffirm that ASEAN agreements signed and other instruments adopted before the establishment of the ASEAN Charter shall continue to apply and be legally binding where appropriate;

• the ASEAN Charter will reaffirm principles, goals and ideals contained in ASEAN's milestone agreements.

Soon after this Declaration was issued, an Eminent Persons Group was established to examine and recommend the contents of the Charter.