Human rights are a rapidly emerging area of study at universities in Southeast Asia and there is an increasing body of research work being done by academics and researchers, including graduate students, in the region. Currently, there are only a small number of universities with degrees or majors in human rights though a large number of universities are exploring the possibility of placing human rights on the curriculum. This demands many universities in the region to develop their capacity to teach and conduct research in human rights.
The need to continue developing academic capacity is necessary to complement civil society achievements in human rights advocacy in the region. The demand to enrich the academic discourse on human rights in the region likewise occurs in the context of a number of regional developments such as the formalization of the ASEAN Inter-governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), the incipience of the ASEAN Commission on Women and Children (ACWC) and the mandate to evolve an ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights. These call for targeted research and dissemination of results at the regional level to promote evidence-based policy making and hence contribute to the goal of building a “people-centered ASEAN”.
To date, the body of published research on human rights in Asia tends to be dominated by Western universities and researchers. Most researches on contemporary human rights issues are conducted at the local level, often utilizing different methodologies and in varying languages and due to limited access to resources, they tend to be limited in distribution.
An international conference on human rights in Southeast Asia will open up space for dialogue and exchange of knowledge. There has not been a regional conference on human rights and it is critical to support regional initiatives on human rights that will focus on current researches, trends, methodologies and developing concerns in the field of human rights. This proposed conference would certainly contribute to ensuring a dynamic and vigorous debate on contemporary human rights in Southeast Asia.
Recent efforts are made to acknowledge the integral role that civil society has as frontline players in human rights promotion and protection and to ensure civil society engagement in continuing regional advances. Academia has an integral role to act as a bridge between top-level policy makers and civil society involved in the promotion of human rights at localized sites by producing targeted research, conducting comparative studies and proposing evidence-based policies. In order to guard against academic isolation and simultaneously theoretically contextualize human rights advocacy, it is important that the academia and civil society sustainably engage and continue learning from each other. Similarly, as educators, Southeast Asian academics have a strong role in the development of common understanding of human rights within the region as they identify linkages between the local-regional-international dynamic, thereby contributing to wider global debates on human rights education and pedagogy.
Human rights advocacy has a long history in Southeast Asia. As long as human rights violations persist, the struggle exists. In the final analysis, human rights are ultimately a national issue and a government that respects human rights is but a product of historic national political struggles. Given, however, the advances regionally, the discourse needs to be elevated to that level to bring on board countries that are lagging behind in their obligation to realize human rights of their peoples and to prepare to define and articulate Southeast Asian human rights norms and standards. Building strong academic capacity and sophisticated policy-making processes to complement grassroots advocacy are invaluable to forwarding a cogent proposition for human rights in Southeast Asia.
The conference intends to bring together academics, researchers, graduate and post-graduate students, civil society organizations and government and inter-government agency representatives who work on the research and greater understanding of human rights in Southeast Asia. It seeks to enrich the knowledge and discourse on contemporary human rights in Southeast Asia through a dynamic dialogue among stakeholders from the academia, civil society and governments. It further aims to provide a venue to explore the ways researchers and civil society have begun to make critical contributions to deepening the understanding of human rights-based framework and actual issues through in-depth engagement with localized sites within the Southeast Asian region. As human rights is an emerging area of study at universities and academic institutes in Southeast Asia, the conference aims to provide a venue for the increasing body of research work being done by academics, researchers and graduate students on human rights in Southeast Asia.
1. Universality and particularity of human rights
2. Individual and collective rights
3. Gender, sexuality and women’s rights
4. Rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups
5. Peace, conflict, security and human rights
6. Challenges to human rights in Southeast Asia
Media, advocacy and popularization of human rights
14 October 2010
8:00 – 9:00 Registration
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and Introduction
9:30 – 10:30 Keynote speech; Q and A
10:30 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:30 Parallel panel sessions
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch
1:30 – 3:00 Parallel panel sessions
3:00 – 3:30 Break
3:30 – 5:00 Plenary
15 October 2010
8:00 – 10:00 Plenary
10:00 – 10:30 Break
10:30 – 12:30 Parallel panel sessions
12:30 – 1:30 Lunch
1:30 – 2:30 Parallel panel sessions
2:30 – 3:00 Break
3:00 – 4:30 Plenary: Conference Summation and Closing Remarks