Page 37 - The Ethics of ASEAN

A Model of ASEAN Ethics

A term used today representing rules-based ethics in international policy is “Rules
Based Order” (RBO). The United Nations is considered the leading institution representing
RBO but there many others. 17

As demonstrated since the formation of the United Nations following
the Second World War, a rules-based international order is the only
alternative to international coercion by competing great powers,
spheres of influence, client states and terrorist organisations.
Moreover, global development through the achievement of the
sustainable development goals (SDGs) can only occur within a rules-
based international system based on commitment and respect.
An effective rules-based international order depends largely on
the professionalism and neutrality of the United Nations, and
the effectiveness of the United Nations depends mostly on the
commitment by its Member States.

The first foundational declaration of the United Nations is the Declaration of Human Rights
proclaimed in 1948. Although ASEAN was founded nearly twenty years later, it took quite
some time before its own declaration of human rights was agreed to in 2012. The ASEAN
version has forty articles compared to the UN’s thirty. Included are many of the same rights
as in the UN declaration but you also see human development ethics such as “the right to
work in just, decent and favourable conditions” and encouragement of Member States to
adopt development programmes.
Having rules-based ethics in ASEAN does not mean, however, that all ASEAN member
states enforce them in their individual countries. The ASEAN human rights declaration
18
leaves the door open for its Member States to ignore implementation of the rules,
representing a very different setup compared to the European Union whose declarations
apply to all members and are enforced by powerful institutions.
An important test case of ASEAN rules-based ethics came in 2020 when the Myanmar
military Tatmadaw arrested leaders of a democratically elected government, fired on
peaceful protesters killing more than a thousand, banned or jailed reporters and tortured
prisoners. This triggered an intense debate about the ASEAN ethic of non-interference and
in 2021, for the very first time, Myanmar was not invited to the ASEAN Summit even though it
is a Member State. It sent a message that ASEAN rules-based ethics cannot be completely
disregarded. How this prioritisation of a rules-based ethical action over the virtue ethic of
non-interference plays out in ASEAN was not clear at the time of writing this book.

ASEAN’s Results-Based ethics
As a philosophical category, results-based ethics do not generally enjoy the prestige
of virtue ethics and rules-based ethics. Called “utilitarianism” as formulated by Jeremy

17 The United Nations and the Rules-Based International Order published in 2016 by the United Nations Association
of Australia https://www.unaa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/UNAA_RulesBasedOrder_ARTweb3.pdf
retrieved 1 February 2022.
18 The ASEAN Human Rights declaration can be found here https://asean.org/asean-human-rights-declaration/
downloaded 10 February 2022

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