Page 411 - SSB Interview: The Complete Guide, Second Edition

Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty was signed with the intention of
turning Southeast Asia into a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. The treaty took
effect on 28 March 1997 after all but one of the member states ratified it. It
became fully effective on 21 June 2001, after the Philippines ratified it,

effectively banning all nuclear weapons in the region.

East Timor submitted a letter of application to be the eleventh member of
ASEAN at the Summit in Jakarta in March 2011. Indonesia has shown a

warm welcome to East Timor.

Environment and Democracy

At the turn of the twenty-first century, issues shifted to involve a more
environmental perspective. The organisation started to discuss environmental

agreements. These included the signing of the ASEAN Agreement on
Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002 as an attempt to control haze pollution
in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful due to the outbreaks

of the 2005 Malaysian haze and the 2006 Southeast Asian haze. Other
environmental treaties introduced by the organisation include the Cebu
Declaration on East Asian Energy Security, the ASEAN Wildlife

Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) in 2005, and the Asia-Pacific
Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, both of which are responses
to the potential effects of climate change. Climate change is of current

interest.

Through the Bali Concord II in 2003, ASEAN has subscribed to the notion
of democratic peace, which means all member countries believe democratic

processes will promote regional peace and stability. Also, the non-democratic
members all agreed that it was something all member states should aspire to.

The leaders of each country, particularly Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia,

also felt the need to further integrate the region. Beginning in 1997, the bloc
began creating organisations within its framework with the intention of
achieving this goal. ASEAN Plus Three was the first of these and was created

to improve existing ties with the PRC, Japan and South Korea. This was
followed by the even larger East Asia Summit, which included these