Meredith Lehman

Providing immigration legal assistance, filing asylum applications, policy advocacy, case research

As humanitarian crises become increasingly prevalent in the Southeast Asian region, ASEAN's traditional principle of non-interference becomes an insufficient means of maintaining security. Ongoing human rights violations within Myanmar and other member states continue to test the bounds of the organization's founding principles. The "ASEAN way" has undergone transformation as circumstance requires the organization's role in human rights advocacy grow more complex. The formation of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration presented a stark deviation from the region's traditional policy. As it developed, however, the AICHR appeared to serve more of a performative role in promoting human rights than an active one. Though the formation of a human rights body is itself a central step toward addressing human rights abuses in Southeast Asia, the AICHR has little impact due to a lack of enforcement power or ability to explicitly call attention to a certain state’s violations. ASEAN's response to the Rohingya crisis exemplifies traits characteristic of the non-interference principle combined with nuanced use of soft power by individual member-states to display ASEAN's slowly evolving role. It provides insight for necessary policy change within ASEAN to better address Human rights violations committed by its member states.