ABSTRACT
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) operates in the backyard of powerful China, and under the outreach of the United States, both of which increasingly constrain the organization’s room for action. The ASEAN Charter of 2007 prohibits nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in its member states, re-endorsing an earlier treaty adopted to keep Southeast Asia free of nuclear weapons, all other weapons of mass destruction, and interference by external powers. Consensual preventive diplomacy has been at the heart of ASEAN’s mission since its establishment in 1967. The Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights has come in for much criticism as a body of governmental representatives that has so far declined to deal with allegations of gross violations of human rights. The Middle East and Asia present some of the gravest dangers to international peace and security, but, with the limited exception of ASEAN, for the most part lack institutions or arrangements for the prevention of conflicts or for preventive diplomacy.
