Non-Citizen Rights in ASEAN: The Need to Chart a New Course

Abstract

Time and again, Asian post-colonial states have caricaturized themselves as the force of conservatism in international affairs through their unabating self-proclamation as exceptional region. In this regard, the critical nature of post-colonial legal studies that traditionally unpack the dark side of liberal-cosmopolitanism based claims is obviously helpful in any critical engagement that aims to keep the post-colonial leviathans in check. This ‘inward turn’ is not only critical in furthering accountability in the Third World States’ conducts in international affairs but also has to be connected with some practical significances that eventually connect itself with the contemporary challenges such as in regard to the rights of transnationalized subaltern groups in the globalised South. Based on these aspirations, this article finds that even in a hostile legal setting toward the non-citizens such as that of ASEAN there is a silver lining through simply reframing it as a human rights issues rather than refugee’s or migrants’. Moreover, this particular proposal might also be applicable beyond the Asiatic region as the unpredicted rise of a new kind of “low” politics which is a mix of populism, nativism and xenophobia in the traditionally liberal political settings, such as in Europe and the US.

Keywords: communalism, human rights, refugee law, regionalism, third world legal theories, international law, Asia, Eastern values