In 2009, Asean established a long-awaited regional human rights body in the form of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). This commission has now undertaken a self-assessment of its work in recent years, and it covers some of the innovative measures identified below. Complementary to AICHR, there also came into being the Asean Commission on the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) and other sectoral bodies.
The lingering question over the past decade has been whether such commissions can undertake a more protection-oriented role such as monitoring and assessing human rights situations, investigating violations and receiving complaints related thereto, as well as recommending redress. While AICHR and ACWC have to follow their terms of reference which set out the parameters for their work, creative initiatives on the part of some, if not all, of the members of these commissions help to concretise more protection-related actions, and this can be advanced by their work plans, such as the current AICHR Workplan 2021-25.
