Can the ASEAN human rights system be effective in preventing and dealing with human rights abuses in the region?

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Bárbara Figueiredo de
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/132171
• topic: ASEAN; Human Rights; Regional Human Rights Systems; Rohingya crisis; AICHR; AHRD; ANSA; Direitos Humanos; Sistemas de Direitos Humanos Regionais; Crise dos Rohingya; CIDHA; DDHA; Direito

Why is Southeast Asia the stage of the some of the greatest atrocities committed against human rights in the twentieth-first century? Why has an unprecedent wave of protests swept across Thailand? Why are the Rohingya still one of the most discriminated people in the world, subjected to the most horrendous atrocities? Why in Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, continued his murderous “war on drugs”? Why are there human rights activists in Cambodia under threat and forced to leave the country? What is the role of regional human rights systems in the protection and promotion of human rights? Are they really capable of uphold human rights in their regions? Why does ASEAN remain unresponsive to human rights violations? Is it a success disguised in failure? These questions and many others related to the widespread human rights violations in Southeast Asia are all intrinsically connected and an answer to them is intended to be found in the present work. Throughout the world regional human rights systems have been established, being considered the main pillars in the protection and promotion of international human rights standards. Notwithstanding, and unlike the European, African, and Inter-American regional systems, ASEAN, established in 1967, has been proven to be extremely ineffective in upholding human rights in the region. In the year of 2020 many are the examples of mass atrocities committed against ASEAN member states civilians, proving that the system is deeply flawed and incapable of giving a proper response to the inhuman conscience shocking acts that are taking place across the region. ASEAN human rights system seems to be irremediably built upon rhetoric and whose framework is for many considered to be nothing more than a strategy to divert attentions with a mere appearance of compliance with international human rights standards, showing a tendency to watch with a blind eye. The present dissertation intends to give a critical analysis of both procedural and substantive flaws, while making a pertinent comparison to the three regional human rights systems mentioned above in order to seek for lessons to be learned.