AICHR Press Release on Strengthening the AHRD through the ASEAN Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment (2025) and ASEAN Declaration on Promoting the Right to Development and the Right to Peace Towards Realising Inclusive and Sustainable Development (2025)
18 November 2025 — The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) today commemorates the anniversary of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) and the Phnom Penh Statement on the Adoption of the AHRD. For more than a decade, AICHR has made significant progress in promoting and protecting human rights in ASEAN through a consultative and evolutionary approach within the cooperation framework of the AHRD.
At the 47th ASEAN Summit and Related Summits in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 26 to 28 October 2025, ASEAN leaders took further steps to deepen ASEAN Member States’ commitments on the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, right to development and right to enjoy peace through the adoption of the ASEAN Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment and ASEAN Declaration on Promoting the Right to Development and the Right to Peace Towards Realising Inclusive and Sustainable Development. Aligned with the aspirations and vision of ASEAN 2045: Our Shared Future, the two declarations further ASEAN’s human rights agenda on the environment, peace and development. They represent regional commitments complementing and strengthening the AHRD consistent with ASEAN’s community-building objectives.
Human rights, development, peace and a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment are inseparable and intertwined. The instruments represent the aspiration to safeguard the well-being of the ASEAN peoples, particularly those in vulnerable and marginalised situations, and the sustainability of our region.
They reflect ASEAN’s collective commitment to address the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, and to promote inclusive and sustainable development, safe climate, clean air, and healthy ecosystems, among others, for present and future generations. It further underscores ASEAN’s alignment with multilateral treaties while emphasising that the mutually reinforcing aspects of human rights, development, peace and the environment call for strengthened cooperation across ASEAN Member States and with non-state actors.
AICHR invites all stakeholders — governments, parliaments, judiciaries, local authorities, businesses, non-State actors, national human rights institutions, civil society, non-governmental organisations, youth, academia, and communities, among others — to work together with ASEAN to translate these regional commitments into action. AICHR is ready to work with ASEAN organs, sectoral bodies and entities to complement ASEAN efforts to realise the goals of the declarations.
