Conference Report on the BMBF Academic and Policy Roundtable 2013

In 2008 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) adopted the quasi-constitutional ASEAN Charter which many observers regarded as a landmark document in the grouping’s institutional evolution. With the Charter Southeast Asian governments seek to transform ASEAN from a regional organization based on “soft law” (that is, informal and non-binding processes of decision-making) with a poor implementation record into a rule-based, more legalized and, hence, more effective regional grouping. No less ambitious was the objective to convert ASEAN from an elitist, state-centric organization to a people-oriented association.

Against this background, the Southeast Asian Studies Program at the University of Freiburg organized an Academic and Policy Roundtable on the subject of "Democratising ASEAN and the role of the European Union". A number of panels covered a range of topics from human rights, the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly through EU-ASEAN Inter-regionalism. Some 30 scholars, practitioners and political representatives convened at the Free University of Berlin on September 30, 2013 to take part in the discussion. The Academic and Policy Retreat was sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

More information on the Roundtable

You can download the full report here.