19 November 2012 – The United Nations human rights chief today welcomed the renewed commitment by leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to universal human rights norms – but expressed concern that the regional body’s recently-adopted human rights declaration, the region’s first, retains language that is not consistent with international standards.
“The international human rights mechanisms will continue to hold ASEAN member states to their international obligations and encourage ASEAN to strengthen further its regional human rights framework,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, added in a news release.
Meeting in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, the regional body’s leaders on Sunday adopted the so-called ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD), which affects some 600 million people within the borders of the regional body’s ten member countries.
Read more: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43536&Cr=human+rights&Cr1=#.UKs3Sc2DBXI
