ASEAN’s Inadequate Role in Handling the Rohingya Migration Crisis since 2012

Ethnic conflicts between ethno-Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya that broke out in Rakhine State in 2012 haveprompted a massive wave of Rohingya migrants across Southeast Asia. The Rohingya migration crisis happened atthe time when ASEAN was praised as a successful regional organization in the Asia-Pacific region for its seniority as well as its efforts in introducing the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and establishing the ASEAN Community with three key pillars; namely, the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC). Particularly, ASCC aims at building a people-centered and people-oriented ASEANthat indicates ASEAN’s aspiration to protect human rights and promote social welfare. It is no doubt that the Rohingya incident is a test to ASEAN’s reputation and will be a test of whether such a regional Community is able to solve its own regional issue. Given that context, thisarticle examines the role of ASEAN in dealing with this regional problem and will argue that ASEAN has proved to be rather incompetent. It’s unlikely that ASEAN will have a collectively adequate response and a decisive solution for the crisis in the near future because of challenges regarding ASEAN norms, internal and external factors, and differences in the priorities of its member countries.

Keywords: ASEAN, Rohingya, Myanmar, Muslim, ethnic conflict, migration.

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