Professor Muladi, Chairman of the Habibie Center,

Distinguished Participants,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am truly appreciative and pleased to be invited to address this Roundtable Discussion, organized by the Habibie Center and ISEAS, and to share with you some of my thoughts on the prospective Charter of ASEAN.

In August last year ASEAN reached the venerable age of forty, an important stage in the life of any organization. It has indeed been an eventful forty years.

One unique aspect of ASEAN's existence and growth has been that during the past four decades ASEAN cooperation has proceeded without any formal constitutional basis. Up until this moment, ASEAN has functioned only on the basis of a “founding document”, that is, the Bangkok or ASEAN Declaration of 1967 and other agreed declarations, concords, and communiqués. Apart from the specific Treaties ASEAN has initiated, these documents did not require any formal ratification or to be of a legal-binding nature. Thus, ASEAN cooperation has been loose and informal, relying on political persuasion rather than legal enforcement and basing itself on musyawarah (consultation) and mufakat (consensus). This style of cooperation has often been dubbed as “the ASEAN way”.

However, this way of functioning has not resulted in ASEAN being ineffective. On the contrary, ASEAN's most notable achievement is that during these decades it has been able to create and maintain peace and stability in Southeast Asia. In turn, this condition of peace has made it possible to promote and strengthen economic cooperation and integration among ASEAN member states. And this undoubtedly has contributed significantly to their respective national and regional progress.