Page 21 - The Ethics of ASEAN

CHAPTER
1

The Founding Ethical Enterprise

he regional association that would become the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) can be traced back to 1961 when three nations Thailand, the
TPhilippines, and the Federation of Malaya came together to form what they
initially called the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA). From this seed an aspirational
ethic of collaboration and an ideal of human development took root. The founding ideal
was eloquently stated by Emmanuel Pelaez, Vice-President and Foreign Secretary of the
Philippines: 1

Long life to ASA. May it not only keep alive the hopes of the Malay in
the kampong, the Thai by the riverside, and the Filipino in the barrio
– but, beyond that, may it help bring about the realisation of these
hopes in order that the millions of people in our countries may find
a sense of true brotherhood, not in suffering but in contentment,
not in the degradation of poverty but in the dignity of an ample life,
not in the darkness of ignorance but in the sunlight of education,
not in the affliction of disease but in the virility of good health
– not in the despair of a stunted life but in the exhilarating and
exultant environment of limitless opportunity for the development,
enrichment and fulfilment of the human personality.

Is an Ethics of ASEAN Possible?

How is it possible for a region to have its own ethics? We need to start by defining ethics
before coming to the question of regional ethics.
In English there are actually two words for the same thing, ethics and morals. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica declares that the two terms are used interchangeably and most
1 Quoted in the May 1962 letter from Gayl D. Ness to Richard Nolte of the Institute of Current World Affairs.
Downloaded 8 November 2021 from the ICWA online archive http://www.icwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/
GDN-14.pdf

11