Happy Year of the Horse!
January was a relatively quiet time for this blog, as I was teaching my NUS Law
School seminar on the law and policy of the ASEAN Economic Community. This involved 36 hours of lecturing and discussion
over a 12 day period, as well as covering my trade litigation work in Malaysia
and Thailand, so I was very tired.
Thanks to Simon
Tay, my NUS faculty colleague and head of the Singapore Institute of
International Affairs, who helped with the class and will be co-teaching the
course with me in future editions. Also
thanks to the ASEAN Secretariat for again hosting my class for another on-site
seminar in Jakarta.
One January development I
didn't comment on was the
Obama Administration nominating Nina Hachigan as the new US resident ambassador
to ASEAN. She is a senior fellow at
the Center for American Progress, with a focus on US-China relations and
international institutions. Thus, unlike
current US ambassador David Carden, Ms. Hachigan will come to the position with
more experience in foreign policy. Ambassador Carden did perform very well,
drawing upon his legal experience to develop the job (it should be noted that
Hachigan also has legal training).
Hopefully he will remain engaged in the region after his term ends.
I also hope that
Ambassador-designate Hachigan can help the ASEAN institutions continue to
mature and share the US experience with institution-building with ASEAN. During our on-site visit to the ASEAN
Secretariat, the NUS Law class learned that the Committee on Permanent
Representatives (CPR) or its subcommittees meet on virtually every working day
at ASEAN headquarters, with most meetings focusing on oversight of the
Secretariat’s activities. That is akin
to having US congressional oversight hearings being conducted every day inside
the White House, with Obama administration officials being called to
testify (or available to testify) at a
moment’s notice.
This is not what was intended
when the CPR was created by the ASEAN Charter, of course. The CPR was supposed to take over the work of
the hundreds of ASEAN regional meetings that are held each year in support of
the ASEAN Communities. Yet those
meetings still take place, and in some policy areas have actually increased in
number. Hence one could view the CPR’s current focus
on oversight as bureaucracy filling a vacuum, particularly as the ASEAN member
states continue to send senior foreign ministry types as permanent
representatives to Jakarta, and not fully staff the delegations with experts
from other ministries, as is done in the EU.
On the other hand, if the
CPR oversight process gives the ASEAN member states more confidence in both the
capabilities of the ASEAN Secretariat, as well as their own capacity to oversee
the activities of the ASEAN Secretariat, then perhaps the ASEAN member states
will become more accepting of a stronger role for the Secretariat and the ASEAN
institutions. This also happened in the
EU.
Thus, unlike
others, I do not think that the CPR’s role necessarily is detrimental to
ASEAN’s continued development. However, this
will depend on whether the CPR’s oversight focuses purely on administrative
oversight or expands into a collaborative policy role that works with a
stronger ASEAN Secretariat.
