This book discusses the compliance of ASEAN Member States [AMSs] with their obligations in the ASEAN agreements they have ratified. Despite consisting of only three chapters, this book presents comprehensive and critical analyses on the evolution of monitoring obligations in ASEAN. The book provides a complete assessment, as it provides a deep review of ASEAN’s approach to monitoring its three communities: the ASEAN Economic Community [AEC], the Political Security Community, and the Socio-Cultural Community. It also addresses in detail the purpose of monitoring, including compliance sensu stricto, implementation, interpretation, facilitation, and symbolism. The analysis is supported with several figures, appendices, treaties, and ASEAN agreement links, as well as indexes that enable readers to more easily digest the book.

In discussing and analyzing ASEAN’s approach to and purposes in monitoring its three communities, the book evaluates the gathering of information with regard to compliance with, and implementation of, certain obligations. The book also suggests some structural possibilities for ASEAN. For example, an agent who monitors ASEAN compliance could be “an independent body empowered to investigate or evaluate and, if necessary, enforce compliance” (p. 61). The last part of the book adds several operating tools related to monitoring compliance, such as how data are collected, when monitoring takes place, what powers monitors have, and how transparent the mechanism is.

The topic of the book is both interesting and demanding, insofar as AMSs have so far preferred diplomacy to legalism as they apply the ASEAN Way in all co-operation sectors. It can be said that ASEAN’s compliance is somewhat lacking, as there are merely AMS commitments instead of legal sanctions. For example, AMS compliance with the 2007 AEC Blueprint was considerably weak. Not all AMSs have fully complied with the Blueprint, whose term of application ended in December 2015. The AEC scorecard measures are not fully implemented by all AMSs. As of 31 October 2015, the overall implementation rate by all ten AMSs stood at 92.7 percent, or 469 out of 506 measures.Footnote ¹ The first and second pillars—the single market and production base and the competitive economic region—had not been fully implemented compared to the third and fourth pillars of the AEC Blueprint. This unsatisfactory result made these pillars immediate priorities of AMSs, and they are now part of a continued programme of the AEC Blueprint 2025. Furthermore, there is “the political resistance to binding obligations generally” (p. 98) in ASEAN, even though the ASEAN Charter that had been agreed to and ratified by AMSs clearly asserts that “We, the People of the Member States of the Association … [h]ereby decide to establish, through this Charter, the legal and institutional framework for ASEAN”.Footnote ²

Noting that monitoring is explicitly linked to the evaluation of success and to achieving a specific outcome, the book correctly underlines that the ASEAN Nuclear Zone Treaty is one of its achievements, since it constitutes an area with a relative narrowness or a negative obligation. The ASEAN Economic Community is predicted to have substantive compliance, as it has a more general category of obligations and a more interest-driven area, namely, measurable co-operation compared to co-operation on human rights (p. 61). The book concludes that the limited budget and human resources are the reasons for ASEAN’s inability to achieve satisfactory compliance (p. 98). This is more or less because ASEAN has also maintained a positive consensus that leads to slow decision-making. When a decision has been made, the agreement must still go through a long process, since it has to be ratified and then implemented at a national level. At the national level, implementation is very slow, due to the decentralized system. It can be said that ASEAN’s ineffectiveness mainly lies within its status as an intergovernmental organization that operates based on the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of AMSs. In this context, ASEAN has built interstate relations on an informal basis and for many years has had an aversion to rules-based and centralized approaches to co-operation.

This book provides a clear understanding of ASEAN’s evolution from co-operation to integration, especially regarding the compliance of AMSs within the context of the ASEAN Community. Due to the scarcity of references on ASEAN, this book can be considered an oasis for those who are interested in or are researching the topic of ASEAN integration. It is written by an expert on the rules and institutions of global governance who is an experienced scholar, this being his fourteenth book.

This is the first book to focus exclusively on the compliance of AMSs and it is one of the monographs published within the context of a wide-ranging research project entitled “Integration Through Law: The Role of Law and the Rule of Law in ASEAN Integration” [ITL], undertaken by the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore and directed by J.H.H. Weiler, Michael Ewing-Chow, and Tan Hsien-Li. The book has slightly outdated information, however, as the research was conducted and finished in 2012. An example is the ASEAN Scorecard figure from 2012 (p. 30). This minor defect, however, can present an opportunity for those who are interested in conducting further research on ASEAN’s compliance, especially for the post-2015 ASEAN Community, as ASEAN is progressing into a rules-based organization. The ASEAN Secretariat is currently working on developing an enhanced scorecard that is not composed simply of “yes” or “no” answers regarding compliance with AEC measures. The new scorecard would be strengthened with outcomes and impact evaluation, with the intent to foster stronger strategies for AEC public outreach. The book suggests creating an independent body that can monitor ASEAN Members’ compliance with authorization to investigate or evaluate and, if necessary, enforce compliance. This approach may be suitable for ASEAN development for ten years to come.