ABSTRACT
ASEAN was formally established at Bangkok on 8 August 1967. It brought together five countries-Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines-in one of the most remarkably divergent group of states. Not only were its members very dissimilar in terms of their physical size, ethnic composition, socio-cultural heritage and identity, colonial experience and postcolonial polities, they also lacked any significant previous experience in multilateral cooperation. Since cultural and political homogeneity could not serve as an adequate basis for regionalism, the latter had to be constructed through interaction. Such interactions could only be purposeful if they were consistent and rule based, employing those rules which would ensure peaceful conduct among the member states. To this end, ASEAN’s founders over a period of a decade from its inception adopted and specified a set of norms for intra-regional relations. A Malaysian scholar, Noordin Sopiee, would later describe them as the ‘ground rules of inter-state relations within the ASEAN community with regard to conflict and its termination’.1
