Non-Citizen Rights in ASEAN: The Need to Chart a New Course. (April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Iskandar, Pranoto
• Other Names: Mainwaring Cetta guest-editor.; Walton-Roberts Margaret guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Social & legal studies. Volume 27:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 180
• Page End: 199
• Publication Date: 2018-04
• Subjects: Asia -- communalism -- Eastern values -- human rights -- international law -- refugee law -- regionalism -- Third World legal theories; Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; 340.115
• DOI: 10.1177/0964663917746485
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0964-6639

Abstract

As an ancien régime, East Asia has been considered a region that bucks the trend of the so-called 'humanization of international law', where the primacy of the interests of individual has become the norm. As such, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the only institutionalized transnational body in the region, not only embodies a political statement against the Western backed liberal order, but also harkens back to the decolonization era, summoning Bandung's post-colonial ideals where the state is the only and, thus, ultimate expression in international affairs through the espousal of equality and non-interference paramountcy. This article argues that this post-colonial arrangement has failed to serve its supposed ultimate beneficiary, that is, subaltern groups such as the persecuted Rohingya. The Rohingya have been denied their human rights even by their post-colonial fellows. To bring sobriety into the fold, the article uses the ingenuity of the Malaysian Human Rights Commission Suruhanjaya Hak Asasi Manusia Malaysia (SUHAKAM), as a node to cross-cultural legitimation, as a call for an 'indigenized pragmatism' embracing universal human rights that transcend the boundaries of nationalism-based political discourse rather than refugee rights due to their evocation of foreignness.