The Asia-Pacific region is known for having one of the least developed institutional mechanisms for protecting human rights. This edited collection makes a timely and distinctive contribution to contemporary debates about strengthening the institutional protection of human rights in the Asia-Pacific region, in the wake of ASEAN's announcement in 2009 of an ASEAN regional human rights mechanism.

Drawing together leading scholarly voices including Surya Deva, V.T. Thamilmaran, Tom Zwart and Catherine Renshaw, the book focuses on the systemic issue of institutionalizing human rights protection in the Asia-Pacific. It critically examines the prospects for deepening and widening the institutionalization of human rights monitoring in the region, challenging the orthodox scepticism about whether Asia is "ready" for stronger institutions. The volume analyses the impediments to institutions, whilst questioning the need for them.

Introduction: Regional Integration and Human Rights Monitoring Institutions, Hitoshi Nasu Part 1: International Institutions 1. The Engagement of Asia-Pacific States with the UN Human Rights Committee: Reporting and Individual Petitions, Ivan Shearer and Naomi Hart 2. Human Rights Monitoring Institutions and Multiculturalism, Nisuke Ando 3. Challenges to a Human Rights Mechanism in the Asia-Pacific Region: The Experience of the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council, Shigeki Sakamoto 4. Innovations in Institution-Building and Fresh Challenges: The Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Sarah McCosker 5. Chinese Practice in UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies: Principled Sovereignty and Slow Appreciation, Wim Muller Part 2: Regional Institutions - Evolving Mechanisms 6. Resistance to Regional Human Rights Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Demythologizing Regional Exceptionalism by Learning from The Americas, Europe, and Africa, Ben Saul, Jacqueline Mowbray and Irene Baghoomians 7. Persistent Engagement and Insistent Persuasion: The Role of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism in Institutionalising Human Rights in the Region, Tan Hsien-Li 8. ASEAN: Setting the Agenda for the Rights of Migrant Workers?, Susan Kneebone 9. Challenges for ASEAN Human Rights Mechanisms: The Case of Lao PDR from a Gender Perspective, Irene Pietropaoli Part 3: Transnational And National Institutions 10. The Role of Networks in the Implementation of Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region, Catherine Renshaw 11. Human Rights Commissions in Times of Trouble and Transition: The Case of the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal, Andrea Durbach 12. Corporate Human Rights Abuses: What Role for the National Human Rights Institutions?, Surya Deva 13. Rethinking Human Rights in China: Towards a Receptor Framework, Mimi Zou and Tom Zwart

Dr Hitoshi Nasu is a lecturer in law at The Australian National University and a deputy director of The Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL). He is the author of International Law on Peacekeeping (Martinus Nijhoff, 2009).

Associate Professor Ben Saul is Co-Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at the Faculty of Law, The University of Sydney, and a barrister specialising in human rights law. He is the author of Defining Terrorism in International Law (Oxford, 2006).