Topics in Human Rights, Development, Rule of Law in SE Asia: Challenges,Sustainability and Democracy

The course addresses topics of contemporary controversy and importance in SE Asia and its regional organization, ASEAN. Southeast Asia is characterized by an extraordinary range of development, political systems, the rule of law, and many other social, historical, and cultural factors, yet faces economic, political, security, and environmental challenges that demand collective solutions. The complexity of addressing those challenges is exacerbated by the US-China rivalry in this region of 700 million persons, a rivalry that is increasingly drawing in other countries, and, above all, India, Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Although the need for a unified approach to crises such as the South China Sea, civil war in Myanmar, climate change, migration, and environmental degradation is widely recognized by its 10 Member States, perhaps at no time in its history has ASEAN been so deeply divided. The course will address how individual SE Asian nations and ASEAN are responding to these challenges in governance, economic development, and sustainability by taking up key topics of immediate and pressing interest.