Founded on 8 August
1967, Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) is undoubtedly one of the
most successful regional organizations in the world. It has been able to
achieve its goals over the course of history. The five founding members of
ASEAN managed to maintain its neutrality during the Cold War, taking side in
neither bloc. ASEAN prevails and until now, it is well-established with ten
committed members. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines,
Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam have always
envisaged ASEAN not only as an intergovernmental organization, but also a
community of nations. The Bali Concord II serves as a proof to the level of the
groups’ regionalization. The three pillars of ASEAN Community was agreed and
adopted in 2003 ASEAN Bali Summit, namely the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC),
ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community
(ASCC), which came into force at the end of 2015.
APSC
plays a crucial role in the realization of a dynamic, cohesive, resilient, and
integrated ASEAN Community (ASEAN 2009) . This concept,
coined by the Indonesian government, seeks to promote democracy, good
governance, and human rights while preserving peace and stability by strengthening
existing regional ties and defense instruments such as ZOPFAN, SEANWFZ, and TAC
(Weatherbee 2009) . Nevertheless, ASEAN still finds
difficulties in fending off the menace to its security, with adverse impacts
suffered by citizens of multiple memberstates, as well as nationals of other
countries outside ASEAN. South China Sea conflict aside, ASEAN is still mired
with intra-regional threats such as terrorism, haze pollution, human rights
abuse, and many others which are as important as one another. While focusing on
haze pollution, this essay argues that the root of the problem to regional
security is the prevailing ASEAN Way that maintains regional order, and the
absence of legally binding instruments to sanction violating governments.
The
haze pollution caused by forest and peat land fires is an annual occurrence in
the region, given the vast area of land covered by rainforest. Overtime, there
have been political economic changes in the region that also altered mode of
production, marked with industrialization, increase of consumption, increase of
urban population, as well as energy demand (Elliott 2003) . Hence, the adverse
impact of environmental degradation in the form of haze pollution caused by
human agency, along with natural process of forest fire. Regardless of the
cause of the fire, the result is air pollution with implication on various
aspects of public well-being in the region. Southeast Asia is home to 5% of
total rainforest on the planet, yet 25% of global deforestation take place in
the region (Weatherbee 2009) , mostly done by
large-scale burning. All ASEAN memberstates are confronted with this problem,
but the biggest source of the catastrophe is Indonesia. Since 1985 to 1997,
Indonesia saw a depletion of its forest area from 119 million hectare to 100
million hectare, while 1997-1998 went on as the worst haze incident in the 20th
century. During this period, the fires burnt approximately 1.7 million hectare
of land in Sumetera, 6.5 million hectare in Kalimantan, 1 million hectare in
Papua, and 0.4 million hectare in Sulawesi (Jones 2004) . Consequently, the
haze spreads to neighbouring countries, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand,
the Philippines, as well as Australia. The same haze accident took place again
the first 16 years of the 21st century.
The
haze pollution has caused environmental degradation, deterioration of air
quality, which leads to declining human health, as well as massive economic
losses. Along with the depletion of total forest area, haze pollution in 2013
from Indonesia pushed pollution index in Singapore well above the dangerous
level (401), while that of Malaysia reached a worrisome 746 (Heilmann
2015) .
This prompted the emergence of anti-Indonesian demonstration in Malaysia, while
the Singaporean government had to send a formal letter to Indonesian government
as an expression of disappointment over the bad management of forest fire.
It
is understood that haze pollution has caused several respiratory diseases, such
as bronchial asthma, respiratory tract infection, and so on. Up until 2012,
approximately 40.000 people reportedly needed treatment from such diseases and
70 million ASEAN citizens were implicated by the haze (Acharya 2012) , hence the upshot of
public spending in health sector. The haze also
disrupted the region’s economic activities with declining timber production and
harvest from agriculture sector. The ensuing erosion also came at a cost, while
air traffic was suspended, hence the sluggish performance of tourism in the
region.
With
individual national efforts seeming to be futile, in 2002 the ASEAN governments
came up with Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP) as a solution to
the common problem. AATHP serves as the basis of joint effort to tackle haze
pollution and for policy harmonization. It came into force after six
memberstates ratified it. The AATHP offers a more structured platform under the
auspices of environment ministers. Coordination through Conference of the
Parties (COP) and implementation by the Committee (COM), with the help of its
instruments, allow memberstates to obtain information on weather and hotspots,
building capacity in fire prevention, and ask for assistance by other
memberstates. AATHP also stipulates the pooling of funds by memberstates to
ease the financial burden through ASEAN Haze Fund. Therefore, AATHP can serve
best to prevent and monitor transboundary haze pollution resulting from land or
forest fires through concerted effort, both in national, regional, and
international level. However, the enactment of AATHP did not have an instant
impact, while leaving Indonesia as the worst source of haze “at large”, unbound
by ratification of the agreement. As a result, the Indonesian government had to
deal with international backlash in the wake of another episode of haze
pollution in 2006.
Indonesia
finally became the last memberstate to ratify the AATHP in early 2015, but this
move was tainted by another forest fire in Riau, costing 2% of its GDP. It
shows the ineffectiveness of AATHP in compelling states’ behavior. This is
deep-rooted in the text of the agreement itself. Article 27 on Dispute
Settlement stipulate that dispute between cooperating parties are to be settled
amicably through consultation and negotiation. In effect, there is no sanction
whatsoever that can be subjected to any violating state. This could be the
reason why the frequency of forest fire in Indonesia remains high, with
recurrent incident each year.
Of course this
stems from the very principle of ASEAN Way as the benchmark of memberstates’
behavior towards one another. The principle of non-interference, conceived in
the ASEAN Way, does not allow memberstates to meddle in one another’s domestic
jurisdiction. Sovereignty is non-negotiable. But, this principle is against the
spirit of APSC, which is to create a dynamic,
cohesive, resilient, and integrated community. The concept of security has
expanded to include human security as a goal of the international community (Weatherbee
2009) ,
while security community is defined by the level of integration as the attainment
of a sense of community, accompanied by formal or informal institutions that
are strong enough and widespread to assure change among members (Acharya 2001).
The AATHP clearly finds hard time being such institution that protects human
security, while the APSC sidelined from playing more significant role than mere
indication of integration.
So
long as the principle of noninterference and sovereignty kept non-negotiable,
the creation of a well-integrated community will not be attained in the near
future. As Weatherbee (2009) puts it, human
security is a condition in which individuals are safe
in their economic and societal circumstances in a setting of equality and
justice. The recurring
haze pollution each year is a sign that shows the failure of governments to
create this condition for citizens of ASEAN.
It
should be kept in mind that the APSC is not a defense arrangement. It does not
have a peacekeeping role. It does not have a common foreign policy. Although
claiming to enshrine democracy and human rights, because of the ASEAN way, it
cannot guarantee them. That is why memberstates still find difficulties in
overcoming other pressing issues such as terrorism by extremist groups in the
Philippines and Indonesia, and human rights abuse as we have witnessed in
Myanmar. ASEAN needs to give up proportionally on principles and start serious
integration.
References
Acharya, Amitav. Constructing a
Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional
Order. London: Routledge, 2001.
—. The Making of Southeast Asia: International Relations
of a Region. Singapura: ISEAS, 2012.
ASEAN. ASEAN
Political-Security Community Blueprint. Jakarta: ASEAN, 2009.
Elliott, Lorraine. “ASEAN and environmental cooperation:
norms, interests and identity.” The Pacific Review 16, no. 1 (2003):
29-52.
Heilmann, Daniel. “After Indonesia’s Ratification: The
ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution and Its Effectiveness As a
Regional Environmental Governance Tool.” Journal of Current Southeast
Asian Affairs 34, no. 3 (2015): 95-121.
Jones, David Seth. “ASEAN Initiatives to combat Haze
pollution: An assessment of regional cooperation in public policy‐making.” Asian
Journal of Political Science 12, no. 2 (Desember 2004): 59-77.
Weatherbee,
Donald E. International Relations in Southeast Asia: The Struggle for
Autonomy. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009.
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