Your Excellencies, colleagues and friends.
Good morning. I trust that you have been enjoying beautiful Langkawi so far — our food, the sea, and the sunset, among others.
This year 2025 is a historic year. It was a decade ago when Malaysia, chairing ASEAN, led the adoption of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025: Forging Ahead Together, setting ASEAN’s direction for ten years. A new vision for 2045 will be adopted this year to renew ASEAN’s commitments and aspirations for the next 20 years.
I am tasked with the immense responsibility to chair the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) this year. I am honoured to do so.
Aligned with ASEAN’s vision to foster a people-oriented and people-centred community, the AICHR will continue to advance the promotion and protection of human rights through its numerous programmes. The AICHR’s new Five-Year Work Plan for 2026 to 2030 is one of the significant milestones this year.
The theme of Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship is “Inclusivity and Sustainability”. This theme is more than just a vision; it is a call to action. Inclusivity demands that those made vulnerable and marginalised are heard in matters that affect and impact them. They are also entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy and benefit equitably from, the economic, social, cultural and political developments in ASEAN. On the other hand, sustainability requires due recognition, acknowledgement and respect for human and environmental rights, to ensure that any development meets present needs without compromising the dignity, rights, and ability of future generations to meet their needs. We cannot be sustainable without adopting a rights-based approach that protects people and the planet.
Both of these terms, inclusivity and sustainability, are also not new in the ASEAN dictionary. How do we operationalise these for the better using an ASEAN-led, ASEAN-owned and whole-of-ASEAN approach? How do we improve on issues of peace, inclusive growth and sustainable development?
As we start this year afresh with several new Representatives ready to assume their roles, I am mindful of the need to take a building-block approach to support and ease a seamless transition of work and information from the previous batch to the present group today. I am also excited to foster new relationships and deepen existing ones inside and outside of this Commission, for us to collectively achieve an ASEAN and an AICHR that are strong, respected, resilient, relevant, inclusive, and sustainable. Importantly, we must emerge from this Commission as good friends.
With this, Excellencies, I officially open the 40th Meeting of the AICHR.
These welcome remarks were delivered on 11 February 2025, at the opening of the 40th Meeting and Retreat of the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) held in Langkawi, Malaysia from 11 to 14 February 2025.
