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Author	Ms Yvette Foo
Organisation/Institution	National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law
Country	SINGAPORE
Panel	International Law
Title	Cautious, Consensus-Driven Commitment: Contextualising ASEAN’s 30-Year Evolution in Cooperation in Criminal Matters from Political Aspiration to Formal Treaty
Abstract	Almost three decades ago in 1996, ASEAN first contemplated the possibility of cooperating in criminal matters including extradition. Now in 2025, as stated during the ASEAN Summit, a much-anticipated regional extradition treaty is fast approaching completion. This paper traces the intergovernmental organisation’s slow but committed relationship with transnational criminal cooperation to contextualise how this momentous treaty was concluded. ASEAN’s journey to arrive at an extradition treaty is a traceable one: ASEAN’s evolving legal and institutional frameworks have laid out a solid foundation to adopt and implement a formal treaty to realize collective criminal justice cooperation. Drawing upon existing bilateral and multilateral arrangements in the region, establishment of new meeting groups, and related legal ASEAN instruments including inter alia the 2004 Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, 2007 ASEAN Charter, 2007 ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism, and 2019 Model Extradition Treaty, the paper comments on how ASEAN achieved sufficient structural and normative readiness to commit to a full regional treaty. At first blush, ASEAN cooperation is often criticised for uneven application owed to its member states’ differing legal capacities or balancing in favour of sovereignty/the principle of non-interference: mischaracterised as a sweeping disregard for international cooperation for fear of external encroachment on national policies. However, it is argued that ASEAN recognises that its desire for a ‘people-centred’, ‘safe, stable, and prosperous’ region with a rules-based community must be one that treats the eradication of transnational crime and impunity seriously.
Biography	Yvette Foo (LLM, LLB) is a Research Associate at the Centre for International Law, at the National University of Singapore, and Managing Editor for CIL Dialogues. She was previously an Assistant Production Editor for the Asian Journal of International Law. Yvette's research interests include ASEAN regional integration, international criminal law, transitional justice, and international humanitarian law. She has written on ASEAN dispute settlement, the WTO dispute settlement process, and conducted research on ASEAN integration and rules-based community. In 2023, she presented a paper at the Asian Society of International Law's junior scholar workshop discussing ASEAN's crisis-driven regionalism following economic crises, from the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and COVID-19 pandemic. In 2025, she presented a working paper on Southeast Asian memorialisation and transitional justice at the 14th United Nations Colloquium at the University of Cologne.