Non-state actors in Southeast Asia

In her contribution, Tan Hsien-Li outlines the behaviour of Asian states in the international legal order with a special focus on the emerging pattern of a greater contribution by civil society to the creation of human rights norms in the state-centric environment of Southeast Asia. Her approach is mostly empirical, for the legal scholarship in that region of the world has not yet generated a specific understanding of the function and status of these actors. Yet, the practice reported by Tan Hsien-Li already provides a useful bellwether of the greater amenability witnessed in that part of the world to according a place to these new actors in the international legal system.