Page 137 - The Ethics of ASEAN

Ethics of Human Development in ASEAN

can prevent their integration into local communities. On the other hand, citing the book,
Leading Human Development in ASEAN, she makes the point that the diversity of values
and practices in ASEAN can potentially form a regional framework for human development
with specifically regional concepts like snook (fun) in Thai or merdeka (freedom) in Malay.
Dr Jehom shows that these values, while belonging to very different cultures, can form a
cultural framework for regional ethics.
For companies, human development as an emerging paradigm can improve
management of ethics at work by including qualitative methods of law, sociology,
psychology and anthropology to the almost exclusive focus on quantitative methods used
by HR today. The purpose of creating an International Master in Human Development
at Universiti of Malaya comes from the need to raise the level of expertise in human
development and improvement of work in ASEAN.

Ethical Takeaways

Human development is one of ASEAN’s founding ethical aspirations and a broad concept
with a rich philosophical history. The United Nations began a process to redefine human
development beyond a purely economic meaning, elevating it to an international rules-
based ethics as a human right and a results-based ethics with its sustainable development
goals.
In ASEAN, this rules-based ethic of human development has become not only a right
but was defined as an essential ethic of the ASEAN community in 2012.
Ms Rodora Babaran of the ASEAN Secretariat described how human development
for ASEAN is a foundation of the socio-cultural pillar as a people-centered and people-
oriented community. This has been expanded to include promoting and protecting
human rights and fundamental freedoms, improving quality of life and living standards,
ensuring decent work for all, achieving gender equality and social inclusion, and enabling
participation and meaningful engagement of ASEAN peoples. She notes that human
development in the world of work is continuously evolving and sees the future of work in
ASEAN as an area of ethics.
Dr Vachararutai Boontinand of the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies
at Mahidol University underlined that to be exercised, human rights need to go beyond
the letter of the law and ASEAN needs ethics as well as laws. She believes a top-down
approach towards human rights law enforcement cannot work without a culture of human
rights that supports ordinary people to stand up for their own rights and the rights of
others. She points out that in the past companies had a legal obligation to defend policies
of human rights but didn’t have the obligation to report violations. Today’s requirements
require companies to do due diligence to identify and act upon actual and potential human
rights risks for workers. With this new dimension of responsibility, human development
professionals are being sought out by companies to report on human rights and human
development.
Professor Virgel Binghay of the School of Labour and Industrial Relations at the
University of Philippines estimates that the need for clear ethical frameworks is ever
more urgent given the scale and complexity of labour markets today. He describes the
new frameworks that anchor ethics and reminds us that decent work remains only an

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