Beyond Non-Interference: The Improved ASEAN Humanitarian-assistance Mechanism to Respond to the Myanmar Crisis

Abstract

Since the occurrence of the Myanmar military coup in February 2021, the non-interference principle of the ASEAN Way shows the institutional limitations in dealing with the Myanmar crisis effectively. Simultaneously, some ASEAN scholars suggest that ASEAN may need to improve the regional human-rights mechanism to resolve the crisis by practicing Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Nevertheless, the Myanmar crisis is being trapped in an anarchic political environment, different attitudes of ASEAN and Myanmar toward the crisis not only expanded the conflicts between non-interference and R2P, and resulted in the lack of a synergistic mechanism to cope with this crisis. To solve practical problems, meet the needs of the Myanmar people for humanitarian assistance and alleviate the ripple effects originating from the Myanmar crisis in neighboring countries, this article adopts constructivism of international relations (IR) and the theory of functional synergism to analyze the different attitudes to non-interference and R2P among the region, as well as proposes a strategy of constructing a new synergistic humanitarian-assistance mechanism that beyond the limitations of non-interference to dealing with the Myanmar crisis.