University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications Human Rights and Participatory Politics in Southeast Asia (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights)

Review Human Rights and Participatory Politics in Southeast Asia is a significant and much-needed contribution to the theoretical and comparative literature on regional human rights mechanisms. Catherine Renshaw argues convincingly that regional human rights work and national debates inform and influence each other. ― Mark Sidel, University of Wisconsin-Madison An excellent and well-researched examination of the complex developments surrounding the rise of human rights in Southeast Asia. Catherine Renshaw offers a masterful analysis of the roles played by regional institutions in promoting and protecting human rights. ― Teresa Tan Hsien-Li, National University of Singapore Product Description In Human Rights and Participatory Politics in Southeast Asia, Catherine Renshaw recounts an extraordinary period of human rights institution-building in Southeast Asia. She begins her account in 2007, when the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed the ASEAN charter, committing members for the first time to principles of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. In 2009, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights was established with a mandate to uphold internationally recognized human rights standards. In 2013, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration was adopted as a framework for human rights cooperation in the region and a mechanisim for ASEAN community building. Renshaw explains why these developments emerged when they did and assesses the impact of these institutions in the first decade of their existence. In her examination of ASEAN, Renshaw asks how human rights can be implemented in and between states that are politically diverse—Vietnam and Laos are Communist; Brunei Darussalam is an Islamic sultanate; Myanmar is in transition from a military dictatorship; the Philippines and Indonesia are established multiparty democracies; while the remaining members are less easily defined. Renshaw cautions that ASEAN is limited in its ability to shape the practices of its members because it lacks a preponderance of democratic states. However, she concludes that, in the absence of a global legalized human rights order, the most significant practical advancements in the promotion of human rights have emerged from regional institutions such as the ASEAN. Book Description In her examination of Southeast Asia, Catherine Renshaw asks how human rights can be implemented in and between ASEAN states that are politically diverse. She concludes that, in the absence of a global legalized human rights order, the most significant advancements in the promotion of human rights have emerged from regional institutions. From the Author Catherine Renshaw is Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Head of the Thomas More Law School at Australian Catholic University. About the Author Catherine Renshaw is Associate Professor of Law and Deputy Head of the Thomas More Law School at Australian Catholic University. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction Southeast Asia, home to the world's newest regional human rights system, has been in tumult in recent years. In Myanmar (Burma), Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the 2015 general elections, presaging what seemed to be a new democratic dawn for the former pariah state. Two years later, however, the Burmese military carried out a "clearance operation" in the northern part of the country, aimed at driving out the minority Muslim population, the Rohingya. The military torched Rohingya villages, raped women and girls, and used grenades and helicopters to fire on civilians. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called it a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and human rights icon, refused to criticize the actions of the military. In neighboring Thailand, the military coup d'état of May 2014 was followed in 2016 by a constitutional referendum in whic