Suggestions that China could claim historic fishing rights within the nine-dash line misinterpret international law. While Sourabh Gupta’s arguments, outlined in a recent Forum article, relating to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Articles 62 and 123 have been disputed elsewhere, we argue that his argument regarding Article 56 is also incorrect.
A pressing policy question facing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders at their summit in April 2015 and beyond is whether the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) can be sustained without more effective institutions. This article explores the link between achieving the AEC agenda and institutional effectiveness. To remedy the implementation gridlock, it proposes reforms to the leadership and the technical level of ASEAN bodies, prioritization of new institutions, an effective monitoring mechanism, and an empowered ASEAN Secretariat.
ASEAN needs a ready and capable steward in 2015 and Malaysia looks to be in the right place at the right time. Malaysia has made clear that realising the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of the year will be its main goal for its 2015 chairmanship of ASEAN. In this regard, a recent essay by Malaysia’s Minister of International Trade and Industry Mustapa Mohamed provides subtle but significant indicators of the government’s leadership objectives and the approach to accomplish this.
Regardless of whether or not the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be successfully concluded by its deadline of 31 December 2015, we should not be solely obsessing about its ability to deliver its ‘single market’ objective on time: the AEC project has broader strategic objectives too, and on that front, it has been a success.
The US State Department’s analysis of China’s nine-dash line, which it released in advance of China’s Position Paper on the South China Sea arbitration case with the Philippines, is in part conceptually and legally flawed.
An embarrassing fact about ASEAN governments avoided in public policy discussions is that the capacity of most ASEAN states is quite limited — much more limited than they, and the international community, generally wish to admit. Until there is recognition of limited state capacity, it will be hard to understand the implications for public policy.
Since its inception in 1985, there have been questions about the effectiveness of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to promote economic integration in South Asia. One of the biggest impediments to SAARC’s progress has been the continued conflict between India and Pakistan.
There was hope that some positive results would come out of the 18th SAARC Summit in Kathmandu on 26-27 November 2014, particularly because Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had repeatedly spoken of the need to reinvigorate relations with neighbouring countries.
The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is unlikely to come into being by its December 2015 deadline due to its overambitious design and apathetic implementation. But there are still plenty of things that ASEAN can do to prepare for when the AEC is eventually launched.
The AEC rests on four pillars: a single market and production base; a competitive economic region; equitable economic development; and integration with the global economy.
By the end of 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) expects to establish a single market and production base in the region. With an ASEAN overall workforce of more than 300 million people, the AEC will have strong implications in terms of labour migration and human resource development. By promoting efficiency gains and structural transformation, the AEC will shift the demand for labour skills across countries and sectors, based on evolving patterns of comparative advantages. As a result, labour migration expects to increase, both within the region and with the rest of the world.
Things just haven’t clicked the way they should have in the Australian–ASEAN relationship. We seem far removed from the time when as Australia’s Foreign Minister I had no counterparts anywhere in the world with whom I felt more close and comfortable. And from when, at one of the Cambodian peace conferences, having stumbled inadvertently into an ASEAN foreign ministers’ coffee meeting, my apologies were waved aside with the words ‘Come on in. You’re one of us.’
