Legitimacy and Intervention in De-Judicialized Human Rights Governance: Comparing ASEAN and the Arab League
By comparing ASEAN and the Arab League through an input–process–output legitimacy framework, this paper argues that despite lacking regional human rights courts, these organizations' divergent intervention strategies—from ASEAN's consensus-driven diplomacy to the Arab League's occasional robust political action—are shaped not by judicial absence but by context-specific legitimacy construction and political bargaining.
Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer
When a government fails to protect its own people, or worse, becomes the source of their suffering, the rest of the world faces a difficult choice. Should neighbors step in to stop the violence, or should they respect the rule that every nation has the right to run its own affairs without outside interference? This tension sits at the heart of international human rights. For decades, many regions have tried to solve this by creating courts where judges could legally punish leaders who break the rules. But in some parts of the world, such courts do not exist. Instead, groups of neighboring countries rely on talks, agreements, and political pressure to handle crises. The question for researchers is simple yet profound: without a judge to enforce the law, how do these groups decide when to speak up, and when to stay silent?
Two major groups of nations, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Arab League, operate without regional human rights courts. Both are made up of sovereign states that value their independence above all else. Yet, when faced with severe human rights disasters in their backyards, they act in strikingly different ways. One group tends to whisper, offering aid and asking for dialogue, while the other has, at times, shouted, suspending members and calling for outside military help. A new study by Chunying Li and Abdul Muein Bin Abadi from the National University of Malaysia investigates why this happens. They argue that the answer lies not in the tools these groups have, but in how they justify their actions to themselves and the world. The researchers suggest that the way these organizations build their "right to act"—a concept they call legitimacy—determines whether they can take strong steps or are forced to hold back.
The researchers began by looking at how these organizations are built. In the world of international relations, "legitimacy" is the permission a group has to do something. The authors break this permission down into three parts. First is input legitimacy, which is simply the consent of the member countries. If every country agrees, the group has the green light. Second is process legitimacy, which looks at how decisions are made. Are they made in secret, or are they open? Do they require everyone to agree, or can a majority decide? Third is output legitimacy, which measures the results. Did the action actually solve the problem or make things better? The study uses these three lenses to examine how ASEAN and the Arab League handled four specific crises: the Rohingya refugee crisis and the 2014 military coup in Thailand for ASEAN, and the 2011 uprisings in Libya and Syria for the Arab League.
When the researchers looked at ASEAN, they found a system designed to keep the peace at all costs. The group operates on a strict rule of consensus, meaning every single member must agree before any action is taken. This gives every country a veto, a power to stop any move they dislike. Because of this, the group's permission to act is very narrow. If one member feels that speaking out against a neighbor violates their own sovereignty, the whole group stops. This structure forces ASEAN to rely on "process legitimacy" that feels more like a ritual than a real check on power. They hold meetings, issue statements calling for "dialogue," and set up commissions to talk about human rights, but these bodies lack the power to investigate or punish. When the Rohingya people were fleeing violence in Myanmar in 2017, or when a military coup took over Thailand in 2014, ASEAN did not suspend these countries or impose sanctions. Instead, they offered humanitarian aid and urged calm. The study shows that this approach protects the unity of the group, but it comes at a high cost: the actual suffering of people is often left unaddressed because the group cannot agree on a stronger response.
In contrast, the Arab League showed a much more flexible, though inconsistent, approach. While they also value sovereignty, their rules allow for more variation. During the 2011 crisis in Libya, when the government was attacking its own citizens, the Arab League did something rare for a group without a court: they suspended Libya from their meetings and asked the United Nations to authorize a no-fly zone to protect civilians. This was a bold move that relied heavily on "process legitimacy" built through coordination with global powers. By getting the United Nations Security Council to back their decision, the Arab League gained the permission to act that they lacked internally. However, this flexibility had limits. When a similar crisis erupted in Syria the following year, the group could not find the same unity. Deep divisions between member states, combined with interference from powerful outside nations like Russia and the United States, paralyzed the group. They suspended Syria, but they could not stop the violence or manage the aftermath. The study found that the Arab League's ability to act depended entirely on the specific situation and whether they could get outside support. When they could, they acted strongly; when they could not, they were stuck.
The core finding of the paper is that the lack of a regional court does not automatically mean a region will be weak or silent. Instead, the way a group builds its authority shapes its actions. For ASEAN, the authority comes from the absolute agreement of all members, which creates a high barrier to action and leads to gentle, non-forceful responses. For the Arab League, the authority is more fluid, sometimes coming from the group itself and sometimes from the United Nations, allowing for stronger actions when the political stars align. The researchers suggest that we should stop looking at these groups as simply "failing" because they lack courts. Instead, we should see them as systems where the rules of permission and the politics of the moment decide the outcome. The study concludes that understanding these hidden rules of permission is more important than just counting the number of courts or laws a region has. It reveals that in a world without a global police force, the ability to intervene is less about having the right tools and more about having the right agreement to use them.
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