PHNOM PENH: The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) begin
their year-end Summit in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh from November 18.
Two important milestones are
expected from the three-day meeting.
The first is the adoption of the
ASEAN Human Rights Declaration.
And second, the launch of the
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which was first endorsed by
ASEAN's leaders in November 2011.
It is understood that through the
human rights declaration, ASEAN leaders would commit to promote and protect
human rights, along with "democracy, rule of law and good
governance."
But provisions in the
declaration's draft say rights could be limited for reasons of security, public
order and morality, issues which have been criticised by civil society and
human rights groups.
The objective of the RCEP is to
aim for a comprehensive and mutually beneficial economic partnership agreement
that involves deeper engagement than the existing ASEAN Free Trade Agreements
(FTAs).
Working groups involving ASEAN
member states and FTA partners on trade in goods, trade in services, and
investment have already been established.
RCEP is also based on open
accession, which would enable any of the ASEAN FTA partners, namely China,
South Korea, Japan, India and Australia-New Zealand to participate, either from
the outset or when they are ready to join at a later date.
The arrangement is also open to
any other external economic partners.
The ASEAN secretariat adds that
with the objective of ASEAN Community by 2015 less than three years away, the
economy will feature high on the agenda--particularly, narrowing the
development gap between Member States and economic integration.
The ASEAN leaders will also
discuss global economy, trade exchange, security matters, human rights,
environment and climate change.
ASEAN's leaders will also hold
their dialogues with several of their partners in the East Asia Summit
grouping- among them China, Japan and South Korea- dubbed the Plus Three
partners.
For Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao,
the Cambodia summit will be his last as the leader of the Chinese delegation,
with the new team of Chinese leaders announced on Thursday during the Chinese
Communist Party Congress.
While for US President Barack
Obama, his visit to the Asian region will be his first overseas trip after
being re-elected for another four year term as the American President.
ASEAN-US ties will also be
celebrating 35 years of achievements while ASEAN's ties with India will see a
commemorative summit in New Delhi to celebrate 20 years of ties, at the end of
next month in New Delhi.
ASEAN's Economic and Foreign
Affairs ministers will be meeting ahead of their leaders on Saturday to
finalise the documents and issues to present to their leaders for their summit
meeting.
And among the issues expected to
be tabled, a report on the progress made so far on the South China Sea disputes
issue, a subject which led to ASEAN's foreign ministers failing to issue their
joint communique in July this year due to disagreements on the matter.
Brunei will be next Chair of
ASEAN in 2013.
- CNA/fa
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