The ASEAN Charter and Regional Economic Cooperation

The ASEAN Charter was signed at the 13th ASEAN Summit in November 2007. This was the first time that a Charter was signed by ASEAN members. The ASEAN Charter will play a significant role in the development of intra-ASEAN economic cooperation and East Asian regional cooperation. This is because ASEAN has been not only the sole organization of intra-regional economic cooperation in East Asia, but is also an important hub in the current East Asian regional cooperation. This paper will evaluate the ASEAN Charter, which was signed at the 13th ASEAN Summit. Section 2 discusses the experiences of intra-ASEAN economic cooperation and points out its characteristics. Section 3 analyzes the achievements of the 13th ASEAN Summit, and examines the contents of the ASEAN Charter. Section 4 evaluates the ASEAN Charter. The concluding section summarizes these analyses, and also presents some important future issues relating to the ASEAN Charter, Intra-ASEAN economic cooperation, and East Asian regional cooperation.