AP

Posted: 2007-11-20 04:23:14

SINGAPORE (AP) - Southeast Asian leaders adopted Tuesday a landmark charter to integrate the region as a legal organization bound by one set of rules, but failed to include a mechanism for enforcing human rights.

The charter only calls for a new agency to review human rights among the members of the 40-year-old Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The document gives the body no powers to punish violators - an apparent diplomatic victory for military-ruled Myanmar, the most troublesome member of the 10-nation bloc.

Human rights occupies only a few paragraphs in the ASEAN Charter, whose main aim is to make the bloc a legal and rule-based body similar to that of the European Union.

It took 2 1/2 years to draft and it still needs to be ratified by member countries - through Cabinet decisions, referendums or parliamentary approval - before it becomes final.

The 10 leaders raised a toast of fruit juice and clinked glasses after signing the charter at their annual summit. The happy atmosphere belied the rough road the charter faces ahead.

“We should not detract from the fact that this is a very historic document in ASEAN’s growth,” said former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, who helped draft the charter blueprint.

The Philippines warned Monday that its Congress would be hard-pressed to ratify the charter unless Myanmar upholds the document’s principles of democracy and human rights and release pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

ASEAN is facing intense pressure from the West to force Myanmar’s junta to allow democracy after its troops suppressed pro-democracy protests in September in a brutal crackdown that left at least 15 people dead.

On Monday, the U.S. said ASEAN’s credibility and reputation were at stake because of Myanmar, and the EU imposed fresh sanctions on its junta, including an embargo on imports of timber, gems and metals.

The ASEAN Charter accords a legal identity to ASEAN for international negotiations and transactions. It sets out a common set of rules for negotiations in trade, investment, environment and other fields. It also aims to turn Southeast Asia into a single market and production base with a free flow of goods, services, investment and capital.

While espousing human rights and democracy, the charter upholds ASEAN’s bedrock principle barring members from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs - an edict that Myanmar has invoked to parry criticism of its dismal human rights record and to prevent the human rights agency from having any teeth.

The charter dropped earlier recommendations to mention sanctions, including possible expulsion, in cases of serious breaches by member countries. It says that any such breaches would be referred to ASEAN heads of state for a final decision.

The charter calls for the continued observance of a 10-year-old treaty banning nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia and prohibits “all other weapons of mass destruction.”

ASEAN was founded during the Cold War years as an anti-communist coalition, evolving into a trade and political bloc. It consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.