In 1993, in the aftermath of the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed that Asean should consider establishing 'an appropriate regional mechanism on human rights'.
More than 15 years went by, with little action to create a regional human rights commission. Some individual countries did act, and now Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have national commissions. But most Asean countries, it seems, were not that serious about improving human rights either in their own countries or the region.
During that period, Asean grew into a 10-member body, with the inclusion of Myanmar and Laos in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999. Those new members, in particular Myanmar, made the job of creating a human rights commission even harder.
And so it wasn't until last December that the Asean Charter was adopted, which provided for the setting up of 'a human rights body'. Last month, the Asean nations, meeting in Thailand, finally launched the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights.
Even so, the commission was immediately attacked by critics as a toothless body, which will have no power to impose sanctions against any member country that violates the human rights of its own people.
The commission's terms of reference stipulate that its purpose is to 'promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms of the peoples of Asean'.
But Asean is made up of countries very different from one another. There are those ruled by communist parties, such as Laos and Vietnam; military-ruled Myanmar; Brunei, an absolute monarchy; Muslim-majority states, such as Malaysia and Indonesia; and democracies such as Thailand and the Philippines.