The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is Asia’s most resilient regional organization.  Its ambitious new charter aims to foster, in a dynamic but disparate region, a triply integrated region comprising a Political and Security Community, an Economic Community, and a Socio-Cultural Community.  The charter’s debut under Thailand’s 2008-09 chairmanship of the Association was badly marred, however, by political strife among Thai factions, clashes on the Thai-Cambodian border, and border-crossing risks of a non-military kind.  How have these developments affected ASEAN’s regional performance and aspirations?  Are its recent troubles transitional or endemic?  Do they imply a need for the Association to reconsider its modus operandi, lest it lose its role as the chief architect of East Asian regionalism?

Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak is director of the Institute of Security and International Studies and an associate professor of international political economy at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.  He is a prolific author, having written many op eds, articles, chapters, and books on Thailand’s politics, political economy, foreign policy, and media, and on ASEAN and East Asian security and economic cooperation.  He has worked for The Nation newspaper (Bangkok), The Economist Intelligence Unit, and Independent Economic Analysis (London).  His degrees are from the London School of Economics (PhD), Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (MA), and the University of California (BA).  His doctoral study of the 1997 Thai economic crisis won the United Kingdom’s Lord Bryce Prize for Best Dissertation in Comparative and International Politics—currently the only work by an Asian scholar to have been so honored. 

Professor Jenny S. Martinez is a leading expert on international courts and tribunals, international human rights, and the laws of war. Her scholarship focuses on the role of courts and tribunals in advancing human rights, ranging from her work on the all-but-forgotten 19th-century international tribunals involved in the suppression of the trans-Atlantic slave trade through her work on contemporary institutions like the International Criminal Court and the role of courts in policing human rights abuses in the "war on terror." An experienced litigator, she argued the 2004 case of Rumsfeld v. Padilla before the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to clarify the constitutional protections available to post-9/11 "enemy combatants" who are U.S. citizens. Professor Martinez was named to the National Law Journal's list of "Top 40 Lawyers Under 40" and the American Lawyer's "Young Litigators Fab Fifty." She serves on the board of directors for the Open Society Justice Initiative and has served as a consultant on international human rights issues for both Human Rights First and the International Center for Transitional Justice.

Before joining the Stanford faculty in 2003, Professor Martinez was a senior research fellow at Yale University and an attorney at Jenner & Block. She clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer (BA '59) of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; she was an associate legal officer for Judge Patricia Wald of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Anasuya Sengupta is the Regional Director for Asia/Oceania at the Global Fund will be our speaker. Anasuya will share her unique perspective (as both a former grantee and as a current portfolio manager) on the Global Fund's work to connect women leaders with funders in equal partnership to advance women's human rights.

President Robinson will be drawing on the work of Realizing Rights in areas of corporate responsibility, right to health, decent work and climate justice.

Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997) and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), has spent most of her life as a human rights advocate. Born Mary Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo (1944), she was educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), Kings Inns Dublin, and Harvard Law School to which she won a fellowship in 1967.
 
As an academic (Trinity College Law Faculty 1968-90), legislator (Senator 1969-89) and barrister (1967-90. Senior Counsel 1980, English Bar 1973) she has always sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights as well as in the Irish courts and the European Court in Luxembourg. In 1988 Mary Robinson and her husband founded the Irish Centre for European Law at the Trinity College. Ten years later she was elected Chancellor of the University.
 
Now based in New York, Mary Robinson is currently the President of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. Its mission is to make human rights the compass which charts a course for globalization that is fair, just and benefits all.

About the Lecture Series
The Stanford Presidential and Endowed Lecture Series in the Humanities and Arts brings the most distinguished scholars, artists, and critics of our time to the Stanford University campus for lectures, seminars, panel discussions, and a variety of related interactions with faculty, students and the community at large.

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The question of whether President Ma Ying-jeou will be reelected has already become a hot issue in Taiwan, two years in advance of the next presidential election.  In this special seminar, Professor Ying-lung You, a political scientist and one of the most prominent political strategists in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will analyze the current political and electoral landscape of Taiwan and the possible future trends. Whereas some may argue that the question of Ma’s reelection is a question mark only for those who oppose him, Professor You argues that the reality is rather different. This is particularly so after the ruling KMT party has encountered five consecutive setbacks in the recent elections. In this seminar, Professor You will provide firsthand information about the recent election campaigns in Taiwan. By carefully examining Taiwan’s shifting political landscape, he will give us his prediction about the prospects of both the DPP and the KMT in the 2012 presidential election.

Dr. Ying-lung You received his B.A. and M.A. from National Taiwan University, and his Ph.D. in political science from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In 1995-96, he was executive director of Election Strategy and Campaigning for the DPP. In 1999, he directed election strategy and public opinion polls in the campaign headquarters of then former Taipei City major Chen Shui-Bian, who later won the presidential election in March 2000. In 2000-01, he served as vice-chairman of the Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission of the Executive Yuan. In 2002-03, he served as Deputy Secretary General for the DPP and in 2003-05 as Vice President of the Katagalan Institute. From 2005 to 2008, he served as the vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Commission of the Executive Yuan and concurrently served as vice Chairman and secretary-general of the Strait Exchanges Foundation, through which positions he was mainly responsible for Taiwan’s Cross-Strait policy making under the DPP administration. His research interests are public opinion, voting behavior, democratization, constitutional choices, and cross-strait relations.  He is the author/editor of 4 books and more than 20 scholarly articles.