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Legalization as Strategy: The Asia-Pacific Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2003

Miles Kahler
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Abstract

The Asia-Pacific region offers an example of low legalization of regional institutions and perhaps an explicit aversion to legalization. An examination of three key regional institutions—ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), and the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum)—confirms a regional process of institution building without legalization. Recent developments in these institutions permit some discrimination among competing explanations for low legalization. On the one hand, ASEAN has embraced a legalized dispute-settlement mechanism; Asian governments have also employed legalized global institutions. On the other hand, the ARF and APEC continue to resist clear-cut legal obligations and third-party dispute resolution. This pattern suggests that legalization is best viewed as driven by the demands of economic integration and as a strategic response by governments in particular institutional settings. These explanations undermine alternatives based on domestic legal culture and uniformly high sovereignty costs. The Asian economic crisis has reopened a debate over regional institutions, which may fix on legalization as part of a new regional institutional design.

Type
Law and Economic Integration
Information
International Organization , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , Summer 2000 , pp. 549 - 571
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2000

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References

I wish to thank Robert O. Keohane, Andrew MacIntyre, Richard Steinberg, the editors of International Organization, the participants in the June 1997 conference “Domestic Politics and International Law” and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on previous drafts of this article. Hilary Hicks, Cory Fire-stone, and Pablo Pinto provided valuable research assistance.

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2. The original members of ASEAN, founded in 1967, were Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. Brunei became a member in 1984; Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar were admitted to membership in the 1990s.

3. Leifer 1989.

4. Ibid., 25.

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7. Thambipillai and Saravanamuttu 1985, 11–13.

8. See Acharya 1998; and Khong 1998.

9. Excluding Singapore, a crucial entrepot, intra-ASEAN trade was less than 5 percent of total trade. Chia 1996, 63.

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14. See Ravenhill 1995; and Chia 1996.

15. In addition to ASEAN members, the membership of the ARF includes Australia, Canada, China, the European Union (presidency), India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Korea, Russia, and the United States.

16. Johnston 1999, 287.

17. Ibid.

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24. Ibid., 64.

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40. Ibid., 23.

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54. Under GATT only nine complaints were brought by Asian governments (4.35 percent of the total). Three of these were brought by Hong Kong. In the short time that the WTO procedure has been operational, 10.63 percent of the complaints have been brought by Asian states. The proportion of complaints made against Asian countries has remained roughly the same.

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