CIL's second observation focused on compliance monitoring (including implementation, review and supervision) clauses in ASEAN instruments. The observation aimed to: (1) confirm whether ASEAN has a standard practice of including compliance monitoring clauses in all of its instruments (from 1967 to 2012); (2) confirm the role of the ASEAN Secretariat in compliance monitoring (as mandated under the 1976 ASEAN Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat and, later, under the ASEAN Charter); (3) identify the ASEAN organs responsible for compliance monitoring, where the ASEAN Secretariat is not acting as compliance monitoring authority; and (4) identify issues vis-à-vis ASEAN practice in prescribing compliance monitoring clauses in its instruments.

The observation on ASEAN compliance monitoring clauses was limited to 148 instruments adopted between August 1967 and August 2012 (the time of the establishment of ASEAN and the time of this observation). Similar to our observation of ASEAN DSCs, the observation was limited to main and stand-alone instruments. It did not include protocols or other instruments of amendment, or implementing protocols or instruments unless those instruments contain different compliance monitoring clauses.