The World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 articulated the need to establish arrangements to promote and protect human rights, especially in areas where they need to be recognized.  ASEAN formed an Informal Working Group in 1998 and had its first workshop in Jakarta in 2001 attended by  government officials, NGOs, representatives from the academe and members of the national human rights institutions of ASEAN Member Countries. The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have established national human rights commissions.

The protection and promotion of human rights in the region have traditionally been served by existing state mechanisms like courts in ASEAN. All ASEAN Member Countries are now parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). ASEAN has also made progress in socio-cultural cooperation programs, particularly in social development, child abuse and exploitation, women, drug trafficking, and transborder environmental problems.     

From the Joint Communique issued at the 26th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, ASEAN Member States have since agreed to establish an ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and the Protection of the Rights of Women and Children during the 10th ASEAN Summit in November 2004. The ASEAN Member States, by signing of the Declaration of the Bali Concord II in 2003, also enunciated their implicit and explicit consent to upholding human rights.

The specific measures on human rights as stated in the Vientiane Action Programme are as follows:

1. Completion of a stock-taking of existing human rights mechanisms and equivalent bodies,     including sectoral bodies promoting the rights of women and children;

2. Formulation and adoption of MOU to establish network among existing human rights     mechanisms;

3. Formulation of work programme of the network;

4. Promote education and public awareness on human rights;

5. Establish a network of cooperation among existing human rights mechanisms;

6. Elaboration of an ASEAN instrument on the protection and promotion of the rights of migrant     workers; and

7. Establishment of an ASEAN commission on the promotion and protection of the rights of     women and children.

6th Workshop on the ASEAN Regional Mechanism on Human Rights

The 6th Workshop on the ASEAN Regional Mechanism on Human Rights was hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs in conjunction with the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism and the Philippine Commission on Human Rights on 16-17 July 2007 in Manila. Among the agenda items include stock-taking on human rights issues in the region, promotion and protection of the rights of women and children, an ASEAN Commission on Human Rights in the ASEAN Charter, an ASEAN Instrument on Migrant Workers and promoting education on human rights in ASEAN.  

The Working Group has been carrying out its mission towards an ASEAN human rights mechanism for more than ten years.  As a non-government organization, however, its main contact with ASEAN has been through the one-hour meeting between the Working Group and ASEAN Senior Officials at the sidelines of the regular AMM/PMC/ARF since 1999.