Recently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Thailand, as the country holding the chairmanship of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), came up with the campaign calling the recently ratified Charter of the Asean - Asean Charter for Asean Peoples.

To observers of Asean, this phase seems like a new and positive change for Asean as this sub-regional inter-governmental body has always been referred to as the governments' club, where there is a lack of involvement from the peoples.

It is in the chapter relating to the purposes of Asean (Article 1) where it is highlighted that the association will "promote a people-oriented Asean in which all sectors of society are encouraged to participate in, and benefit from [...] Asean integration and community building".

While this is one of the more positive points within the Charter, the civil society groups are still scepticism of whether Asean can actually fulfil this, as broader civil society groups have never been informed of Asean processes.

This could be evident as Asean civil society when wanting to raise certain issues regionally or internationally prefers to go directly to the UN bodies rather than with Asean.

As the phrase "peoples" have been overly used by Asean, we the civil society has to question if the ratification of this Charter can transform this inter-governmental body to become a people-oriented organisation right away and if this Charter can be an inspiring document for the peoples on the ground.

The network of more than 40 civil society organisations that have been monitoring the work of Asean under the umbrella of the Solidarity for Asian Peoples' Advocacy (SAPA) Working Group on Asean came up with the analysis of the Charter last year prior to the signing of the Charter in November 2007 viewed the Charter as "a disappointment [since] it is a document that falls short of what is needed to establish a people-centred [Asean]".

The Asean Charter while talks about positive phases such as promotion of the role of Asean to promote and protect "human rights and social justice", respect rule of law and good governance, and the respect of UN Charter and international law, however the unpopular principle of non-interference and the respect of consensus is still hold dear to Asean as core principles.

It is comical to see that as the deteriorating human rights situation in Burma is continuing, Asean can still live on the principle of non-interference without questioning the concept.

Asean has yet to assess itself whether the human rights situation in the country is improving since 1997 when Burma is accepted as a member of the association.

To the human rights defenders (HRDs) working on Burma, the detention of pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 political prisoners, the continuation of the uses of child soldiers, and the recent detention of dozens of Burmese HRDs including the leaders of the 1988 Student Generation who took part in the September Saffron Revolution are reminiscent memories of Burma in post 1988.

Only a vision

When we look at the Charter chapter through chapter, we can see that "people-centred" principle is still only a vision far from possible implementation. The Charter is still state-centric, being written by the government officials without genuine broad consultations with civic groups.

There is no mentioning of having institutionalised mechanisms such as the NGO Consultative Status to the UN, where civil society can contribute or comment to the decision-making process of Asean.

Such mechanism is not mentioned in chapters relating to the work of the Asean Summit, Asean Coordinating Council, Asean Community Councils, or the Asean Secretariat level.

The role of civil society is only mentioned in the Asean Foundation on the role of the foundation to promote greater awareness of "Asean identity [and] close collaboration among the business sector, civil society, academia and other stakeholders in Asean."

To the mentality of Asean leaders, civil society's place is only in the socio-cultural pillar where they are only allowed to be informed about Asean or to discuss among themselves, but not allowed to play an important role in the decision-making processes in the areas that they are effected to the most namely the political-security and economic pillars.

Asean should take note that there have been increasing interests of the Asean civil society groups in seeing that the association can become a more relevant body to address the concerns of the peoples, especially on trans-boundary concerns such as migrant workers, trafficking, and refugees, among others.

This is especially true with the Asean's plan to establish the Asean human rights body.

The recently held Asean Peoples' Forum/ 4th Asean Civil Society Conference held in Bangkok, Thailand from Dec 12-14 prior to the 14th Asean Summit in Chiang Mai was an important venue for Asean leaders and governments to actually listen and hear the inspiration from the peoples on what they want Asean to be and to do.

The Asean Charter, while is not the Charter that the peoples actually wish to see, could be a start in making this body a more people-oriented. Asean needs to open up to listen to the peoples more in all its deliberations.

This effort is a must for the Asean governments if they wish to push for a more comprehensive and radical change - if not the association would continue to be people-disoriented Asean instead of an Asean where peoples are actually held centred in all decision-makings.

POKPONG LAWANSIRI is Southeast Asia Programme Officer with the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia).