On Friday, September 28, 2012, the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Committee of Permanent Representatives and David Carden, the US ambassador to ASEAN, met with Hoover fellows and Stanford faculty at Hoover. The Committee of Permanent Representatives is the highest permanent governmental body in ASEAN.
Hosted by Senior Associate Director Richard Sousa and Visiting Fellow David Cohen, the wide-ranging exchange included discussions of health care, international security, human rights, immigration, border security, refugees, and human trafficking. With 75 percent of its trade outside the ASEAN nations, the group is creating the foundations for legal and economic integration and promoting trade development.
With the diversity of the nations evident in their approaches to human rights, border patrol, and security in the South China Sea, the members also acknowledged that the wide variety of political organizations, legal systems, demographics, cultures, and economies across the ten ASEAN nations pose challenges as the organization moves to develop a single market by 2015.
In addition to Sousa and Cohen, Hoover was represented by Fellows Stephen Krasner, Abe Sofaer, Tammy Frisby, Hsiao-ting Lin, Kori Schake, Joseph Levreault, Erik Simonsen, and Penelope Van Tuyl.
