Civil Society Recommendations for an Inclusive and Accountable ASEAN and EU

On behalf of the 52 civil society organisations (CSOs) that actively participated in the 4th ASEAN-EU CSOs Forum convened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 13-14 October 2025, in conjunction with the 6th ASEAN-EU Policy Dialogue on Human Rights, we extend our sincere appreciation to the EU and ASEAN delegations for providing a platform for constructive dialogues with civil society representatives...

This fourth Forum comes at a critical moment. Across our regions, civic space is shrinking, environmental problems keep worsening, human rights and democracy are in crisis and human rights defenders (particularly women and environmental defenders) face greater risks... Civil society stands at the frontline. Defending rights, protecting the environment, and amplifying the voices of the most vulnerable. To continue doing so, CSOs need recognition, protection, and access to decision-making spaces and resources.

Key Recommendations

To facilitate the active, regular, structured, and meaningful participation of CSOs in regional policy formulation, implementation, and monitoring related to human rights, concrete steps should be taken to:

• Shift from viewing CSOs merely as implementers toward recognising them as strategic partners and knowledge leaders to ensure an enabling environment for democracy and the rule of law.
• Formalise the ASEAN–EU CSOs Forum as a systematic and standing mechanism for substantive intergenerational dialogue, consultation, and monitoring of human rights and sustainability commitments.
• Make human rights measurable and actionable by embedding them into ASEAN–EU indicators, cooperation priorities, and funding frameworks.

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Shrinking civic space, civil and political rights, and democracy

• Guarantee open, transparent, and inclusive access to information on national and regional decisions, agreements, and consultations to enable meaningful participation at all levels.
• Respect human rights and uphold freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and collective bargaining. Refrain from using laws and mechanisms and extrajudicial measures that restrict civil society’s and human rights defenders' work both offline and online.
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• ASEAN should establish legal recognition and protection mechanisms for human rights defenders with early warning systems, and safe channels for reporting threats and reprisals against defenders, and the EU should strengthen the protection of HRDs. ASEAN and the EU should forge partnerships for a common understanding of the status and role of HRDs.

Climate change, human rights, and environmental rights

• Support youth-led and community-based initiatives on climate action, social justice, and digital democracy.
• ASEAN and the EU to have a common understanding and the same level of recognition of the vital role of environmental human rights defenders, including Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous knowledge.
• Recognise the urgent need for rights-based priority actions on climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss—collectively declared a triple planetary crisis—and support coordinated global efforts to strengthen ocean governance, including effective implementation of UNCLOS and BBNJ Agreement.
• Promote access to free, accessible, science-based and transparent environmental information, participation in decision-making, and access to justice, in line with the Aarhus Convention principles.
• Establish a robust policy on Just Energy Transition that includes recognition of and safeguards Human Rights and Environmental Defenders, including Indigenous Peoples and vulnerable groups, that centers shared prosperity, human rights, and social protections, and fair negotiations.
• Establish and implement mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence legislation to ensure responsible business conduct, particularly where voluntary measures continue to leave significant gaps in human rights protections, such as modern slavery. Legislation and policies must include provisions on meaningful stakeholder engagement with affected workers, and Indigenous communities’ right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Access to justice and effective remedies

• Establish accessible, responsive and transparent complaint mechanisms within ASEAN and EU processes to ensure affected communities can seek redress.
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• Ensure regional frameworks promote access to remedies for people and communities affected by cross-border harms or corporate misconduct, with attention to access to justice for women, LGBTQIA+, and Indigenous Peoples.
• Enhance collaboration between regional human rights mechanisms, NHRIs, EU Equality Bodies, ombudsman offices and any other/similar mechanisms to improve accountability, monitoring, and complaint handling...
• Fulfill EU and ASEAN Member State obligations and improve access to justice measures for victims of corporate abuses, which must include civil liability for harm caused by human rights due diligence failures; the reversal of the burden of proof for victims; the availability of judicial collective redress mechanisms and reasonable statute of limitations for the bringing of victims’ claims.