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Article Excerpt
Introduction
Governments and national law enforcement authorities in Southeast Asia have had to deal with the particularly difficult question of how to tackle the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs. (1) The four primary categories of illicit drugs found in Southeast Asia are cannabis, cocaine, heroin and synthetic drugs like amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS). In the context of its 40th anniversary, this article examines how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has sought to address this transnational challenge. In particular, it asks whether an international regime against the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs has been established in the region under the auspices of the Association. The article argues that the existing cooperative framework for drug control does not present, despite more than three decades of cooperation, the characteristics of a working region-wide regime, but rather a loose forum for information sharing.
The Association started to focus on the drug trafficking issue in the 1970s. Yet, for more than 20 years, the cooperative process lacked credible leadership and remained primarily rhetorical as declarations were not translated into action. Change came about in regional consultations in the late 1990s as a result of an active Chinese involvement and the accession of Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia into the Association. Adopted in 2000, the ASEAN and China Cooperative Operations in Response to Dangerous Drugs (ACCORD) has become the most concrete attempt to create a framework of multilateral cooperation (ACCORD 2000). China has been supportive of greater regional cooperation since the late 1990s and has sought the establishment of a coherent regional structure. This paper argues, however, that action has primarily taken place at a unilateral and bilateral level, not multilaterally. Regional and domestic impediments to cooperation exist in terms of corruption, domestic pressure, lack of resources, training, internal politics and weak institutional and operational procedures. The prospect of a working anti-drug regime under the umbrella of ASEAN therefore remains limited.
This article consists of four sections. It first introduces the notion of an international regime before giving some examples of global cooperation towards drug control. It then provides an outline of drug production, trafficking and consumption in Southeast Asia. The third section discusses efforts made by ASEAN to address the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs since the 1970s. The final section discusses why no international regime in drug-related issues has emerged under the umbrella of ASEAN despite years of consultations and active Chinese participation.
International Regimes and Drug Control
There is general agreement among the international community that the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs cannot be effectively addressed by individual governments alone; an international response is crucial. As part of such efforts, this issue has been addressed both at a regional and global level through the establishment of international regimes. Often deriving from international conventions or treaties, regimes are agreements between states to promote common interests in a defined sphere of influence. They can both regulate conflictual as well as cooperative relations. For states, the formation of a regime should be regarded as a restriction rather than an abandonment of sovereignty in a specific area.
In the introduction to a special edition of International Organization (1982), Stephen Krasner put forward a definition of the term "regime" that has become generally accepted in the literature. He wrote:
Regimes can be defined as sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge in a given area of international relations. Principles are beliefs of fact, causation, and rectitude. Norms are standards of behavior defined in terms of rights and obligations. Rules are specific prescriptions or proscriptions for action. Decision-making procedures are prevailing practices for making and implementing collective choice. (Krasner 1982, p. 186)
Krasner (1982, pp. 186-89) discussed additional elements that further distinguish regimes from other forms of inter-state cooperation. Regimes must be separated from temporary arrangements, which are immediately transformed by changes in power distribution or interests. Moreover, regime behaviour cannot be based exclusively on interests but needs to include some sense of general obligation. The principle of reciprocity is, for example, an element that characterises regime dynamics. Let us also briefly relate the notion of a regime to the concept of cooperation. As explained by Haggard and Simmons (1987, p. 495), "Regimes are examples of cooperative behavior, and facilitate cooperation, but cooperation can take place in the absence of established regimes". Consequently, regimes should be considered as examples of the process of cooperation. They may be seen as tools developed by states to promote their own interests through mutual cooperation.
Robert Keohane, Lisa Martin and others have argued that cooperation is far from being limited or short-term in international relations. Regimes in particular are expected to facilitate inter-state cooperation by reducing the potential costs involved and providing information on the intentions and interests of the participants. A great deal of attention has been given to the issue of information sharing (Keohane and Martin 1995, p. 43). The existence of regimes is expected to facilitate cooperation by limiting opportunist behaviour and by creating a network of interaction between states. Regimes are thus established and continue to exist as a result of "the benefits they provide: by facilitating communication, information, transparency; by reducing mutual threat perceptions and worst-case thinking; and by undercutting the self-fulfilling prophecies that lie at the heart of the security dilemma" (Hurrell 1995, p. 352).
At the global level, the United Nations (UN) has sought to form an international regime against the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs through the introduction of several conventions. The 1971 Vienna Convention on Psychotropic Substances (United Nations 1971) provides the terminology for the illicit trafficking of drugs, while the 1988 UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (United Nations 1988) further promotes inter-state cooperation against this problem. In November 1994, the UN organised the Naples Ministerial Conference on Organized Crime that led to the Naples Political Declaration and Global Action Plan Against Organized Transnational Crime (United Nations 1994). Perhaps the most comprehensive response from the UN since is the 2000 Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime that includes Protocols on the illicit trafficking and abuse of drugs (United Nations 2000). The UN has established numerous bodies to implement its anti-illicit drug trafficking conventions, including the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. In particular, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), established in Vienna in 1968, is the main monitoring body dealing with the implementation of the UN conventions. In 1997, the UN also established the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to further supervise international efforts against drug trafficking and transnational crime. These UN...
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