THAILAND AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ASEAN ENABLING MASTERPLAN 2025: MAINSTREAMING THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14456/nrru-rdi.2021.41Keywords:
ASEAN Community, Rights, Persons with disabilities, MasterplanAbstract
In 2016 all member states of the ASEAN Community had ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). This Convention was the first United Nations’ Convention to focus specifically on the rights of persons with disabilities. Later, in 2018, the ASEAN member states ratified the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan 2025: Mainstreaming the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The main objective was to integrate the rights of persons with disabilities into all policies and plans of all organizations in the ASEAN Community. It indicates that the rights of persons with disabilities are not the mission of any specific Community. In the past, issues related to the rights of persons with disabilities were confined within the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. In order to make the rights of persons with disabilities real (to close the gaps between policy and practice), the collaboration of all the ASEAN Communities; i.e., the ASEAN Political-Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community; is essential. Thailand who initiated this Masterplan has continued to implement according to the plans of the three ASEAN Communities. However, gaps between policy and practice still exist. This article provides background, principles and main points of the ASEAN Enabling Masterplan. It also proposes the implementation guidelines for Thailand to integrate this instrument by harmonizing Acts and subordinate laws with policies to make the right real for persons with disabilities.
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