Commentaries in the run up to the signing of the ASEAN Charter in Singapore have ranged from the hopeful, to the sceptical and the in-between.

The hopeful sees in the Charter an opportunity to move the regional association towards being a more integrated, rule-based community (in the political/security, economic and social-cultural dimensions) with enhanced institutional capacity including dispute settlement mechanisms, a strengthened Secretariat, even a human rights body and legal standing in international law.

The sceptical either see the Charter as being too idealistic (it promises too much, is heavy with motherhood statements) or fault it for covering too little (it lacks clarity and remains conservatively struck on the non-interventionist and consensus principle; the human rights mechanism waits fleshing out).

The middle-roader sees it as a manifestation of “talking big and acting modestly” – the jury is still out; let’s look at how ASEAN delivers.

Meanwhile for all the Charter’s promise to be “people-oriented”, strengthen democracy, enhance good governance and the rule of law as well as protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, some civil society groups in the region are complaining about their inputs being inadequately accommodated. They will issue an ASEAN People’s Charter in turn.

Debate will continue over the Charter’s ambitions and ambiguities. However we should look at the Charter firstly, as a facilitating instrument to wider goals of integration and community building which are essentially works in progress. As such it will need adjusting as new requirements, expectations and possibilities arise - hence, the provision for review after 5 years.

Secondly, the Charter is the work of nation states; the ASEAN that is being refurbished remains no more than the sum of its parts. Supra-nationalism is eschewed. If the idealism of the Eminent Persons Group’s recommendations is not fully reflected in the final document, it is because its drafting is the work of officials who have to be mindful of its acceptability to their respective governments.

Thirdly, if the Charter raises expectations within regional members - with respect to democratic values, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, good neighbourly conduct, regional identity and community building as well as being people-centred – it would have served a purpose as a mirror to their respective domestic selves. As such it will be a constant reminder to the signatories of the general values and principles to which they have committed themselves as regional members.

Remaking ASEAN is only possible to the extent there is collective political will and that in turn depends on the will and capacity for economic and social reform as well as political renewal on the part of national governments. ASEAN is often criticised for its failings (e.g. we are told that only a third of ASEAN commitments have been implemented) as if ASEAN is a single-unit actor. The reality is that this failure is essentially the failure on the part of member states.

The fourth consideration is the inextricable link between regional order which ASEAN members are seeking to underpin and their respective domestic order. In a sense the ASEAN Charter reflects a continuing search for ways to recalibrate and give substance to regional order in its different aspects. It will put in place a strengthened structure for regional cooperation, underpinned in due course by a regional community that would provide for a more orderly and predictable outcome in intra-mural cooperation or condition in the regional environment the attainment of which will herald a new ASEAN milieu.

Ideally such a system for regional cooperation will constitute a more meaningful core building block, perhaps even model, to wider regional community building in East Asia in the long run. But the realization of such regional ambitions hinges on the exercise of political will on the part of regional states that reflect a diversity of political hues in a spectrum ranging from the “new” and transitional democracies, soft and hard authoritarian governments to an insecure, closeted military regime. The spectrum of regional economies ranges from the most globalised (Singapore) to the least (Myanmar, Laos), from among the most developed and affluent to among the poorest.

Even as we discourse the regional Charter, it bears reminding that some regional states are themselves going through the tortuous process of drafting their own constitutions (Myanmar) or retracing their steps back to constitutional rule (Thailand). And even as the seemingly bold idea of a regional human rights body has now been written into the Charter, it bears reminding that not every ASEAN state has such a body at the national level to begin with.

And while it is publicly acknowledged that civil society groups have a place in strengthening the regional community and civil society groups themselves are increasingly relating to each other in regional terms, there is much disparity and divergence nevertheless in the extent of confidence, trust and access which such groups enjoy with respect to their own governments.

The domestic political malaise in Myanmar and the regime’s heavy-handed reactions to anti-government street protests (challenges to a repressive domestic political order) in the weeks preceding the Singapore summit, not only ensured the maximum international attention on Myanmar, but also threatened to overshadow the ASEAN Charter and other milestones in economic and functional cooperation.

Indeed the Myanmar problem epitomises the negative impact of domestic disorder on recent attempts at re-patterning regional order through the Charter. Singapore’s Foreign Minister, George Yeo who held the annually rotating ASEAN chair at the time the unprecedented strong ASEAN statement on internal Myanmar developments was issued on 27th September 2007, was asked whether the turmoil in Myanmar coming at a time when ASEAN was about to unveil the charter had tested the group’s cohesion and unity. His answer was, “Absolutely”. Intra-mural cohesion was further tested by Myanmar’s objection to a planned briefing for ASEAN and its East Asian Summit partners, on Myanmar developments by Ibrahim Gambari, the special UN envoy tasked with brokering a national reconciliation in that country. In the event, the briefing was aborted and Gambari met with some of the leaders separately.

Domestic political developments could also constrain a member’s role in ASEAN’s family affairs. This was earlier brought home starkly by Surayud Chulanont, the head of Thailand’s military appointed government who reportedly said that as an unelected Prime Minister he could not preach too much about democracy to the junta in Myanmar.

Be that as it may, the domestic political landscapes of several ASEAN countries have witnessed significant developments over the past decade. The pressures for democratic change and demands for empowerment among peoples have already had their impact on the polities in the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand (despite swings in the political pendulum in the Thai case) – with consequent complications for neighbourly relations as emerging and newly empowered political groups lay claim to the foreign policy agendas. The democratisation process can be messy. This makes for a very different situation compared to the past when ASEAN political cooperation was largely confined to a club of generally like-minded, pro-status quo political elites who were said to share a “chemistry” of sorts among themselves.

The new domestic political realities will also bear on the Charter’s ratification which ASEAN heads of government would like to see completed within a year. Gloria Arroyo, the Philippine President had cautioned the summit that she would likely encounter extreme difficulty in getting the Charter ratified by Congress if the Myanmar junta refused to free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and failed to recommit to democratic reforms. On the other hand Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly is an interim one pending general elections later in the year. Earlier concerns focused on the Thai Prime Minister not getting approval in time from parliament in accordance with the new Thai constitution, to sign the Charter at the summit.

Besides the Charter, the ASEAN summit also witnessed the signing of an economic blueprint for an ASEAN economic community by 2015 encompassing a single market and production base that will entail the free flow of goods, services, investments, capital and skilled labour. In the services sector four priority areas (air services, e-ASEAN, health care and tourism) will be freed of all barriers even earlier by 2010. Such an enhanced regional economic order will have to surmount the undercurrent of protection and narrow economic nationalism (vested political as well as economic interests, ethnically-based affirmative action implanted in national economic policies, etc.,) that can get in the way of economic liberalisation. Also, ASEAN comprises economies at very different levels of development. For some it has not been easy to open up, adjust to and embrace the competition (whatever efficiency that might bring from a dispassionate point of view) that regional integration and participation in the globalisation process entail.  

Talk of regional integration and narrowing the developmental divide within ASEAN reflects a similar need to address the societal and economic divides at the domestic level. Nowhere is the interconnectedness between the regional and the national more apparent. A more integrated, cohesive, competitive and prosperous region should translate into domestic betterment for the peoples of the region.

The ASEAN Charter is now signed and declared to the world. For ASEAN this will be a decidedly significant, stepping stone to the next level of cooperation and community building. Much will depend on how political will is being marshalled in each regional member to really implement the commitments enshrined in the document. Failing that, ASEAN runs the risk of confirming to its critics that it is about making process rather than real progress.