Human Rights

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outcome, the book correctly underlines that the ASEANNuclear Zone Treaty is one of its achievements, since it constitutes an area with a relative narrowness or a negative obligation. The ASEAN Economic Community is predicted to have substantive compliance, as it has a more general category of obligations and a more interest-driven area, namely, measurable co-operation compared to co-operation on human rights (p. 61). The book concludes that the limited budget and human resources are the reasons for ASEAN’s inability to achieve satisfactory compliance (p. 98). This is more or less because ASEAN has also maintained a positive consensus that leads to slow decision-making. When a decision has been made, the agreement must still go through a long process, since it has to be ratified and then implemented at a national level. At the national level, implementation is very slow, due to the decentralized system. It can be said that ASEAN’s ineffectiveness mainly lies within its status as an intergovernmental organization that operates based on the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of AMSs. In this context, ASEAN has built interstate relations on an informal basis and for many years has had an aversion to rules-based and centralized approaches to co-operation. This book provides a clear understanding of ASEAN’s evolution from co-operation to integration, especially regarding the compliance of AMSs within the context of the ASEANCommunity. Due to the scarcity of references on ASEAN, this book can be considered an oasis for those who are interested in or are researching the topic of ASEAN integration. It is written by an expert on the rules and institutions of global governance who is an experienced scholar, this being his fourteenth book. This is the first book to focus exclusively on the compliance of AMSs and it is one of the monographs published within the context of a wide-ranging research project entitled “Integration Through Law: The Role of Law and the Rule of Law in ASEAN Integration” [ITL], undertaken by the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore and directed by J.H.H. Weiler, Michael Ewing-Chow, and TanHsien-Li. The book has slightly outdated information, however, as the research was conducted and finished in 2012. An example is the ASEAN Scorecard figure from 2012 (p. 30). This minor defect, however, can present an opportunity for those who are interested in conducting further research on ASEAN’s compliance, especially for the post-2015 ASEAN Community, as ASEAN is progressing into a rules-based organization. The ASEAN Secretariat is currently working on developing an enhanced scorecard that is not composed simply of “yes” or “no” answers regarding compliance with AECmeasures. The new scorecard would be strengthened with outcomes and impact evaluation, with the intent to foster stronger strategies for AEC public outreach. The book suggests creating an independent body that can monitor ASEAN Members’ compliance with authorization to investigate or evaluate and, if necessary, enforce compliance. This approach may be suitable for ASEAN development for ten years to come.