This monograph is published within the context of a wideranging
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 and Tan Hsien-Li.
The Preamble to the ASEAN Charter concludes with
a single decision: “We, the Peoples of the Member States of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. [h]ereby decide
to establish, through this Charter, the legal and institutional
framework for ASEAN.” For the first time in its history of
over four decades, the Legal and the Institutional were
brought to the forefront of ASEAN discourse.
The gravitas of the medium, a Charter: the substantive
ambition of its content, the creation of three interlocking
Communities, and the turn to law and institutions as instruments
for realization provide ample justification for this wideranging
project, to which this monograph is one contribution,
examining ASEAN in a comparative context.