16th Interface Meeting between the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR), 16 May 2025, ASEAN Headquarters/ASEAN Secretariat
The 16th Interface Meeting between the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR) was held on 16 May 2025 at the ASEAN Headquarters/ASEAN Secretariat. Co-chaired by Edmund Bon Tai Soon, AICHR Chair and Representative of Malaysia to AICHR, and Ambassador Sarah Al Bakri Devadason, CPR Chair, the meeting was attended by Representatives and Alternate Representatives of AICHR and Permanent Representatives to ASEAN, with the participation of Timor-Leste as an Observer, and officials of the ASEAN Secretariat.
AICHR and CPR had an engaging and constructive discussion focusing, among others, on strengthening cooperation in the promotion and protection of human rights in ASEAN and enhancing inter-sectoral collaboration. Deepening AICHR’s engagement with relevant ASEAN Sectoral Bodies would ensure complementarities in advancing human rights within the ASEAN Community.
Deliberations explored taking a balanced approach in the discharge of AICHR’s mandate and equal consideration of civil and political rights alongside economic, social and cultural rights and the right to development. In drafting of AICHR’s Five-Year Work Plan (2026-2030), the meeting encouraged a long-term programmatic perspective that allowed AICHR to be responsive, relevant, agile, innovative, decisive and future-ready in addressing global and regional human rights challenges in accordance with the ASEAN Vision 2045 and ASEAN principles of consensus, unity, and Centrality.
