ASEAN is an organisation propelled by a mixture of idealism and hot air. From its inception as a confidence-building association in 1967 to the ambitious adoption in the 2011 Bali Concord III of an ASEAN common platform on global issues, there have been many idealistic statements and declarations. The great failing of ASEAN, repeatedly identified by successive Secretaries-General and the Eminent Persons' Group on the ASEAN Charter, has been the failure to follow up on the grand designs with concrete measures.

Idealism was the primary driver of the ASEAN Charter, which came into force in December 2008. Hitherto, ASEAN had functioned without a formal legal structure. There was in fact no treaty governing the structure and administration of the organisation. Business was done on an ad hoc basis. It was felt that after four decades some formal legal structure had to be given to the organisation if it was to be fit to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The level of ambition is high. The declared goal is to create by 2015 an ASEAN Community comprising threepillars: the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC). None of this will work unless there is an infrastructure of law. Indeed, in the ASEAN Charter and subsequent declarations by the leaders of the ASEAN member states, the rule of law is repeatedly emphasised, as is the desire to make ASEAN a rules-based organisation. Good governance and human rights are also underlined. All of this requires a firm legal basis, which ASEAN has hitherto lacked.

There is a dearth of material on the legal history of ASEAN and the ASEAN Charter. In order to understand the necessity for a proper legal service, it is essential to appreciate how ASEAN came into being and what its present shape is. This monograph is not meant to be a theoretical exposition of what a perfect ASEAN should be, much less is it a comparative study of other regional and international organisations.