Asean human rights authorities were formally advised in their first-ever meeting with the UN chief on human rights to try to work beyond the official line into the public expectation, as the region was about to see Burma’s chairmanship of Asean in the next two years.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the next two years would be crucial to the development of regional and national human rights institutions in the Asean region, particularly in the light of Burma forthcoming chairmanship in 2014, according to the statement received Monday.
Ms Pillay also spoke by telephone with Aung San Suu Kyi, on a range of issues including Burma’s forthcoming chairmanship of Asean, said the statement by the UN Office of the Human Rights.
In the first ever address by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Asean intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), Ms Pillay noted that “the aspirations and expectations outside this room are high – in civil society, the media, among Asean's international partners and, most importantly, among ordinary people.”
At the end of the day, she added AICHR Commissioners – and the governments they represent – “will be judged by what they achieve,” how their work compares with regional bodies elsewhere in the world and whether or not it is in line with international standards.
On Burma, she said Naypyidaw would need to be making significant progress in a number of key areas by the time it takes over the chair of Asean and its human rights subsidiaries in two years time.
Ms Pillay has spent the last three days in Bali meeting the AICHR, National Human Rights Institutions from four (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines) of the ten Asean countries and a broad range of civil society organisations.
