The 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting/
Post Ministerial Conferences/ 14th ASEAN Regional Forum

The Philippines, as Chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee, is scheduled to host the 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC) and the 14th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on 22 July-2 August 2007 at the Philippine International Convention Centre, Manila, Philippines.

The meetings will draw together 27 countries that have a direct bearing on the security of the Asia-Pacific region. It comprises of the 10 ASEAN member states (Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam); the 10 ASEAN dialogue partners (Australia, Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, ROK, Russia and the United States), two ASEAN observers (Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste in 2005); as well as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM)

The AMM is an annual meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers held every July of each year and hosted on a rotational basis by ASEAN Member Countries in alphabetical order, following the rotation of Chairmanship of the ASEAN Summit. The meetings will enable the Foreign Ministers to evaluate issues of paramount interest within ASEAN and discuss regional and international issues affecting the region. The ASEAN Senior Officials and Directors-General will hold a series of preparatory meetings before the AMM.

ASEAN Foreign Ministers are expected to discuss the status of ASEAN's community building efforts and assess the progress of the implementation of the Vientiane Action Plan (VAP) and the Action Plans for the three pillars of the Bali Concord II, namely: the ASEAN Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.

The Philippines, as Chairman, will also seek to follow-up on the directives given by the ASEAN Leaders during the 12th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits held on 12-15 January 2007 in Cebu, Philippines.

At the closing of the AMM, the Philippines will turn-over the chairmanship of ASEAN to Singapore.

ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conferences (PMC)

The Post Ministerial Conferences are annual meetings between the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN Member Countries (AMCs) and the ten (10) Dialogue Partners, namely: Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Republic of Korea, India, the European Union, New Zealand, Russia and the United States of America. Six (6) ASEAN PMCs + 1 will be held after the AMM and will consist of fifty minute session with each Dialogue Partner. Topics of discussion are the status of dialogue relations and future direction. The PMC + 1 is co-chaired by the current country coordinator and the dialogue partner.

Every year in July, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers meet separately with Australia, Canada, EU, New Zealand, Russia and the U.S. A PMC 10+10 luncheon follows where the twenty Ministers continue to exchange views on regional and international developments. The ASEAN Foreign Ministers meet with China, Japan, ROK and India separately during the ASEAN Summit in November each year. 

The ASEAN Charter

ASEAN Leaders signed the Cebu Declaration on the Blueprint of the ASEAN Charter at the 12th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, Philippines in January 2007 where they endorsed the Report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and directed a High Level Task Force (HLTF) to draft the ASEAN Charter.

The ASEAN Charter aims to transform ASEAN into a rules-based intergovernmental organization, set a legal framework for ASEAN to restructure its existing mechanisms and improve its decision-making process to ensure the effective implementation of ASEAN agreements and decisions.  

The Philippines’ representative to the Eminent Persons Group was former President Fidel Valdez Ramos while Special Envoy and Former Ambassador Rosario Manalo represents the Philippines and is the current Chairperson of the HLTF.

The HLTF adopted the following guidelines on the drafting of the Charter:

1. It is a visionary and inspiring document. Brief and comprehensive. The Charter is an enabling instrument of ASEAN;
2. Written in clear and unequivocal statements ;
3. Flexible in order  to allow it to adapt to changing circumstances;
4. Be people-oriented;
5. The basis of a cohesive and rules-based intergovernmental organization of ASEAN; and,
6. A legal framework that will bind all of the Member States to compliance.

The HLTF has conducted consultations with the following groups:

The High Level Task Force is set to present its initial draft of the ASEAN Charter to the ASEAN Foreign Ministers during the 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in July 2007 in Manila. The final draft will be submitted to the Leaders of the ASEAN during the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore in November 2007. 

The HLTF is composed of five (5) ASEAN Senior Officials, two (2) ASEAN Directors General and three (3) former Ambassadors.

The 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting

The Philippines, as Chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee, is scheduled to host the 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC) and the 14th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on 21 July-2 August 2007 at the Philippine International Convention Centre, Manila, Philippines. 

The meetings will draw together 27 countries which will discuss the security and economic prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region. It comprises of the 10 ASEAN member states (Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam); the 10 ASEAN dialogue partners (Australia, Canada, China, EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, ROK, Russia and the United States), two Guests of the Chair (Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste); as well as Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. 

ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers’ Meeting

The ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers’ Meeting is a meeting of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers and the Foreign Ministers of the People’s Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. The Meeting provides a venue for the Ministers to evaluate ASEAN’s relations with its Northeast Asian neighbors and discuss efforts towards community building in East Asia. 

The 10th ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers’ Meeting is expected to review the progress of cooperation under the ASEAN Plus Three Framework as well as follow-up on the directives given by the ASEAN Plus Three Leaders during the 9th ASEAN Plus Three Summit held on 14 January 2007 in Cebu, Philippines.

Southwest Pacific Dialogue 

The Southwest Pacific Dialogue is a forum for the discussion of political, security, economic, social and cultural issues. Its aim is to promote peace, stability, and prosperity among countries in the Southwest Pacific region. Countries participating are Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Timor Leste and the Philippines.

The SWPD is an initiative of then Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000. The First Ministerial Meeting of the SWPD was held in Jogjakarta, Indonesia on 05 October 2002. During this meeting, ministers from participating countries adopted the Jogjakarta Declaration on the Establishment of the Southwest Pacific Dialogue. The Dialogue is based on the following principles: open regionalism, equality of members, non-interference in the domestic affairs of each other, and flexibility of approach in a spirit of mutual understanding and accommodation.

Distinction between the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia and the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone

Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC)

The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC)  raised the provisions of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration to the level of a treaty to which other Southeast Asian countries could accede and with which the nonregional countries could associate themselves. The treaty enshrines the following principles: mutual respect for one another’s sovereignty; noninterference in internal affairs; the peaceful settlement of intraregional disputes; and effective cooperation.

The treaty also provides for a code of conduct for the peaceful settlement of disputes. And it mandates the establishment of a high council made up of ministerial representatives from the parties as a dispute-settlement mechanism.

To this day, TAC remains the only indigenous regional diplomatic instrument providing a mechanism and processes for the peaceful settlement of disputes.

The Treaty on the  Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone

At the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok on 15 December 1995, the leaders of all the ten Southeast ASEAN countries signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ). As a key component of ZOPFAN, the SEANWFZ treaty ex-presses ASEAN’s determination to contribute to-wards general and complete nuclear disarmament and the promotion of international peace and security. It also aims to protect the region from environmental pollution and the hazards posed by radio-active waste and other toxic materials.

The SEANWFZ treaty came into force on 27 March 1997. ASEAN is now negotiating with the five nuclear-weapon states on the terms of their accession to the protocol which lays down their commitments under the treaty.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) was established in 1994 and serves as the main political and security forum in the region. It draws together 27 countries that have a direct bearing on the security of the Asia-Pacific region. It comprises of the 10 ASEAN member states (Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam); the 10 ASEAN dialogue partners (Australia, Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, ROK, Russia and the United States), two ASEAN observers (Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste in 2005); as well as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Its official "footprint" is East Asia - both Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia - and Oceania. The goals of the ARF are essentially to reduce threats to security through open dialogue, recognizing that comprehensive security includes not only military, but also political, economic and social aspects. It is foreseen that the ARF will progress through three stages - confidence building; preventive diplomacy; and elaboration of approaches to conflict.

In a region with little history of security cooperation, the ASEAN Regional Forum is the principal forum for security dialogue in Asia. The ARF complements the various bilateral alliances and dialogues that underpin the region's security architecture. The ARF is premised on the idea - drawn from the ASEAN experience - that a process of dialogue can produce qualitative improvements in political relationships. It provides a setting in which members can discuss current regional security issues and develop cooperative measures to enhance peace and security in the region.

The ARF is characterized by consensus decision-making and minimal institutionalization. The 1995 ARF Concept Paper set out a three-stage, evolutionary approach to the ARF's development, moving from confidence-building to preventive diplomacy and, in the long term, towards conflict resolution capability. ARF plays a significant role in enhancing political and security dialogue and cooperation as well as confidence building in the Asia-Pacific region.

In its first ten years, the ARF has made modest gains in building a sense of strategic community and, more recently, it has contributed to the region's counter terrorism work. But efforts to develop tools of preventive diplomacy and conflict management are still at an early stage. While the ARF continues to focus on confidence building measures, ARF members have also agreed that preventive diplomacy should proceed in tandem with these efforts, particularly in areas that overlap between confidence building and preventive diplomacy.

Preventive diplomacy tools accepted by ARF members to date include an enhanced role for the ARF Chair in coordinating ARF positions so as to strengthen the ARF's ability to respond to situations affecting the security of ARF members during the period between Ministerial meetings. Another mechanism is an ARF Register of Experts and Eminent Persons which, when operational, will provide a pool of expertise on regional security issues that may be drawn upon by the ARF Chair or individual ARF members.

ARF meetings are held at the Foreign Ministers level, annually in July in conjunction with the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC). The Chairman of ASEAN, which rotates on an annual basis, also serves as the Chairperson of the ARF. The principal formal ARF document is the ARF Chairman's Statement issued after every ARF Ministerial meeting.

The ARF is supported by the ARF Senior Officials' Meeting (ARF SOM) which meets annually in May or June. Two ARF Intersessional Support Group meetings on Confidence Building Measures (ISG on CBMs) are also held at officials' level each year, co-chaired by one ASEAN and one non-ASEAN member. Recommendations and outcomes of these ISG meetings feed into the ARF SOM. The ISG meetings provide an opportunity to plan and review a range of confidence building activities and seminars hosted by individual ARF members throughout each year.

Second-track (non-official) institutions, such as the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) and the ASEAN Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN ISIS), have been instrumental in generating ideas and inputs for ARF ("first track") consideration. The second-track institutions and networks conduct a number of seminars and working groups on regional security issues, involving academics, security specialists and officials participating in a personal capacity.

The ARF has considerable potential in dealing with issues like counter-terrorism, human security, non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament (NACD) and conflict prevention. There are also a number of other ARF meetings and workshops on various topics throughout the year at the government senior official and track-two levels.

History

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) convened its first Ministerial Meeting on July 15, 1994 in Bangkok, Thailand in accordance with the 1992 Singapore Declaration of the 4th ASEAN Summit, whereby the ASEAN Heads of State and Government proclaimed their intent to intensify ASEAN's external dialogue in political and security matters as a means of building cooperative ties with states in the Asia-Pacific region.

The ARF has agreed that the ARF process would proceed in three stages, from confidence-building (Stage I), to preventive diplomacy (Stage II), to elaboration of approaches to conflicts (Stage III). The ARF meets annually in July at the Ministerial level and at the support group level during the intercessional period.

The 27th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (1994) stated that "The ARF could become an effective consultative Asia-Pacific Forum for promoting open dialogue on political and security cooperation in the region. In this context, ASEAN should work with its ARF partners to bring about a more predictable and constructive pattern of relations in the Asia Pacific."

Achievements

On the tenth year of the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ARF Ministers met in Phnom Penh on 18 June 2003 and declared that "despite the great diversity of its membership, the forum had attained a record of achievements that have contributed to the maintenance of peace, security and cooperation in the region." They cited in particular:

Participants:

The current participants in the ARF are as follows: Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, China, European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Russian Federation, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, United States and Vietnam.

The ASEAN Regional Forum adopted in July 1996 the following criteria for participation:

1. Commitment:
All new participants, who will all be sovereign states, must subscribe to, and work cooperatively to help achieve the ARF's key goals. Prior to their admission, all new participants should agree to abide by and respect fully the decisions and statements already made by the ARF. All ASEAN members are automatically participants of ARF.

2. Relevance:
A new participant should be admitted only if it can be demonstrated that it has an impact on the peace and security of the "geographical footprint" of key ARF activities (i.e. Northeast and Southeast Asia as well as Oceania).

3. Gradual expansion:
Efforts must be made to control the number of participants to a manageable level to ensure the effectiveness of the ARF.

4. Consultations:
All applications for participation should be submitted to the Chairman of the ARF, who will consult all the other ARF participants at the SOM and ascertain whether a consensus exists for the admission of the new participant. Actual decisions on participation will be approved by the Ministers.

ARF Chair

Based on the ARF Concept Paper, which the ARF adopted on 1 August 1995, the ARF shall be chaired by the Chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee.

For the period of 28 July 2006- 2 August 2007, the Chairman of the ARF is:

Hon. Dr. Alberto G. Romulo
Secretary of Foreign Affairs
Department of Foreign Affairs
Republic of the Philippines

The Chairman of the ARF Senior Officials Meeting is:

Hon. Erlinda F. Basilio
Undersecretary for Policy
Department of Foreign Affairs
Republic of the Philippines

The ARF Contact Point is:
Hon. Romeo L. Manalo
Assistant Secretary
Office of Asia and Pacific Affairs
Department of Foreign Affairs
Republic of the Philippines
Tel: (632)8344000

ARF Unit

ASEAN established the ARF Unit at the ASEAN Secretariat on 26 June 2004. Based on its Terms of Reference, the ARF Unit’s role and functions are as follows: (1) to support the enhance role of the ARF Chair, including interaction with other regional and international organizations, defense officials dialogue and Track II organizations; (2) to function as depository of ARF documents/papers; (3) to manage database/registry; and (4) to provide secretarial works and administrative support, including serving as the ARF’s institutional memory.

Contact:
M. C. Abad, Jr.
ARF Unit Director
ASEAN Secretariat
70A Jalan Sisingamangaraja
Jakarta, Indonesia 12110
Tel. (6221) 7262991; 7243372
Fax. (6221) 7398234; 7243504
Email: mcabad@aseansec.org

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