Friday, October 17th, 2008 East Asia’s ‘Non-Interference’ Versus Western ‘Humanitarian Intervention’: The Challenge to ‘Global Governance’ and the Search for Common Ground

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The non-interference approach to the conduct of international relations embodied in ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) appears to be gaining ground. Importantly, the TAC norms have their roots in anti-colonialism and the opposition to Cold War and are direct decedents of the Ten Principles enunciated at the end of the 1955 Bandung Conference. They also have a clear Asian lineage. This approach is of growing importance because of China’s economic rise and its commitment, along with 14 other signatories, to promoting the TAC as a way of conducting regional and international relations. For their part Western states remain equally committed to humanitarian intervention, especially in the case of failed or failing states. Given the sometimes ambiguous nature of both approaches, is common ground possible? Indeed, what impact will the rise of East Asia over the next few decades have on attempts to develop a global governance regime?

Richard Stubbs is Professor of Political Science, McMaster University and Research Associate with the Asian Institute, University of Toronto. He has published widely on security and political economy issues in East and Southeast Asia.. His most recent books are Rethinking Asia’s Economic Miracle: The Political Economy of War, Prosperity and Crisis (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); as co-editor with Geoffrey R.D. Underhill, Political Economy and the Changing Global Order, 3rd Edition (Toronto and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); and, as co-editor with Amitav Acharya, Theorizing Southeast Asian Relations: The Emerging Debates (London: Routledge, 2008).