ABSTRACT
Three official documents illustrate the steps of ASEAN’s institutional change from 1968 to 1976-the Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) Declaration, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), and the Bali Concord I.1 Previously, there was only one official ASEAN document, the 1967 Bangkok Declaration (ASEAN Secretariat 1967). This declaration outlined very broad, vague institutional objectives, which are to ensure Southeast Asian states’ economic and social development and noninterference. In this declaration, the noninterference principle was the most important norm for ASEAN given Southeast Asia’s history of colonization and territorial and ideological disputes among regional states. As member states do not possess significant military capabilities, they attempted to ensure this principle by promoting mutual respect of member states’ independence, enhancing economic, social, and cultural cooperation, and strictly adhering to the UN Charter. Accordingly, ASEAN’s security arrangement was conflict prevention and political alignment with the noninterference principle. However, its practicality was unclear, because of persistent tension among members, such as the 1968 Singapore-Indonesia political tension and the 1969
Malaysia-Philippines territorial dispute over Sabah. In short, it lacked a means to implement the vague objectives of the Bangkok Declaration. In this context, the ZOPFAN Declaration was adopted on November 27, 1971. This document did not alter ASEAN’s security arrangement, but it outlined institutional objectives more specific than those offered by the Bangkok Declaration (ASEAN Secretariat 1971a). Unlike the document’s title, “the neutralization of South East Asia” was not the objective but a “desirable objective,” and the text clarified a normative code of conduct for both inside and outside Southeast Asia. It emphasized the “sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states,” “abstention from threat or use of force,” the “peaceful settlement of international disputes,” and “equal rights and self-determination and noninterference in affairs of States” (ASEAN Secretariat 1971a). The concept of noninterference was particularly sharpened: ASEAN began to distinguish between noninterference within the region and interference from outside by emphasizing “external interference.”2
