Trade and rights
Trade and rights
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries
have formally rejected the inclusion of workers' rights, labor
standards and environmental issues in international trade
agreements. A joint statement issued at the end of the ASEAN
foreign ministerial meeting in Bangkok last weekend cited among
the reasons for the refusal the possibility of market access
restrictions and their impact on employment opportunities in
developing countries.
The ASEAN members believe that the developed countries' move
to link human rights and environmental issues with international
trade agreements is a mere pretext for protectionism.
As has been known for some time, many Asian governments have
grown more and more irritated in the last several years by what
they see as the high-handed habit of forcing values and standards
on Asian countries on the part of a number of developed nations.
Initially those Asian countries, which badly need market
access and capital from the West, tended to bow under the
pressure. Later, however, they became convinced that what they
initially perceived as being a genuine concern over human rights
and the environment was turning out to be a smokescreen to hide a
plot to stamp out the growing threat of Asia's newly
industrialized countries.
For one thing, while acknowledging that there is, indeed, a
real concern among many Western communities and non-governmental
organizations over human rights and environmental issues, these
Asian countries believe that some Western countries are adopting
a double standard in imposing their values.
The United States' failure to cut China's most favored nation
trade status last June, after President Clinton was forced to bow
to U.S. business pressure, has further convinced Asian countries
that the United States' main concern is its national interests.
This has encouraged other Asian countries to take a more hard-
line stance on human rights and environmental issues.
One can expect that following ASEAN's hardened stance,
confrontation will be the menu of the day in the weeks to come.
Although we do not think that a full-scale trade war will start
in the near future, one can expect that lengthy bickering may
occur.
A trade war aside, our concern is the possible impact on our
human rights movement of the newly decided ASEAN common stance on
the human rights issue. It is no secret that in the past some of
our human rights activists relied rather heavily on international
pressure in the belief that such nudging would move the
government to improve our human rights condition.
Such a notion may have been correct a few years ago, but of
late we have seen that the government has tended to ignore such
nudging, perhaps because of a growing confidence that the so-
called "international pressure" is nothing but the roar of a
paper tiger. For example, a few months ago nobody would have
believed that with the APEC Summit due to be held here in
November the government would dare to clamp down on the press.
Moreover, such an international linkage has its drawbacks: It
has caused the authorities to question the validity and "honesty"
of the human rights movement here, and to suspect that it could
be a vehicle for undermining national stability.
However, one should not forget that in the last several years
there have been many improvements in the human rights condition
here. Thus we believe that a real political will exists in the
government to improve the human rights condition in Indonesia.
What we hope to see most, given the apparent prevailing
symmetry in principle, is our commonly shared ideal of a just
society achieved without unnecessary delay or shocks.