Senior Asean's legal experts are expected to be able to establish measures by July this year to serve as mechanism to settle disputes among member countries.
Vasin Teeravechyan, head of the High Level Legal Experts Group (HLEG), said his team was trying to work out a conclusion of this controversial issue.
Some Asean countries strongly favoured an arbitration system to handle future disputes among member countries.
The proposal gave power to the Asean Coordinating Council made up of foreign ministers in settling bilateral disputes among Asean nations through an arbitration but most of the member countries disagreed with it, he said.
"Most Asean members disagreed with this proposal but wanted the ACC to consider and seek appropriate method. The use of arbitration measure must get a consensus among members,'' said Mr Vasin.
Normally, an arbitration measure need the consensus of parties involved in a dispute. The method was used in dealing with trade disputes only.
No single country in the world has used it as a compulsory measure except in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), said Mr Vasin, after reporting the first draft of his team's finding to the Asean Foreign Ministers on Friday.
He believed the Asean members which favoured the arbitration method would have to compromise and drop their proposal.
By: Bangkokpost.com
Published: 28/02/2009 at 08:28 PM Phetchaburi
This is a good one, obviously out from the "meeting" today. Are we supposed to believe that ASEAN is to 'grow a spine' and 'lay it down' in a regional way and become responsible and pro-active?
Hmmm, I'll believe it when I see it.
