Europe has one. The Americas have one. Even Africa has one. But Asia has long suffered the embarrassment of having no regional human rights body, despite having the bulk of the world’s population – and some of its worst human rights violators.

However, Asia is unique in having a regional NGO network that monitors national Human Rights Commissions. The Asian NGOs Network on National Human Rights Institutions (which goes by the reassuringly cosy acronym of ANNI) has now issued its 2009 review of the state of play of the Human Rights Commissions in those Asian nations that have one, are thinking of having one or are being persuaded, cajoled or shamed into having one. But this report, taken with its predecessor last year, makes for disturbing reading, especially when we apply its findings closer to home.

A great deal of effort goes into setting up National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). An NHRI requires a legal framework within which it can operate effectively. It also requires leadership committed to the protection and promotion of human rights. And it needs adequate resources to do its job.

And there is a template for what a proper NHRI should look like in the form of the Paris Principles, drawn up in 1993 by the UN. One of the key characteristics of a properly functioning NHRI is independence.

And there the problems start. It is up to governments to set up NHRIs, by passing the necessary laws, by working out how commissioners will be selected and appointed, and by allocating budgets. But at the same time it is normally government agents who commit most human rights abuses, certainly as far as extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances and imprisonment for no good reason are concerned.

So there are elements in the murkier reaches of any state apparatus who have a vested interest in seeing to it that there is no NHRI, or at the very least, in restricting, slowing down and diverting the operations of an NHRI. We can therefore expect constant pressure to make sure that NHRIs cannot stop the government from doing what it wants.

Fresh from advising the cabinet that it could safely ignore the constitution when it comes to approving projects that endanger the health of citizens (the courts have ruled otherwise), the Council of State in Thailand has decided, for reasons of its own, that the Thai National Human Rights Commission should operate in silence. According to Council of State changes to draft legislation, the NHRC will not be able to reveal information about cases until a final judgement has been made or the case gets to court and the facts come out in testimony.

The procedure for selecting Commissioners was changed in the military-inspired 2007 Constitution. The first set of Commissioners was selected in a process that involved the judiciary, politicians, the media, civil society and academics. The choice is now made by a panel almost entirely drawn from the judiciary. They selected a slate of Commissioners who are distinguished in their own way, but none of them can point to a career spent in ‘the protection of rights and liberties of the people’ as the constitution demands. And the selection was approved by a senate, half of which was appointed by a government that was itself appointed by the military.

And as we look round the region we see similar efforts to throw sand in the wheels of real human rights protection. By law, the Chairperson of the Indian National Human Rights Commission has to be a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court justice who is less than 70 years old. Unfortunately there is no such person alive who wants the job and there will not be for another 2 years at least.

At the same time, this did not stop a former high-ranking officer of the Indian Police Service from becoming a member of the Commission, which spends most of its time investigating human rights abuses by officers of the, er, Indian Police Service.

And lapses like these set bad examples. To ease the logjam of cases before the Indian NHRC, state commissions were set up. Some of these have now also appointed former policemen to rule on violations by the police. When the selection procedure for Thai Commissioners became less representative and effectively controlled by one branch of government, there were repercussions in Cambodia where the rules for a NHRI are being negotiated. The former Thai procedure had been proposed to the Cambodian government as an example of good practice; that argument has no gone out of the window.

The ANNI reports do show some forward steps. The Thai NHRC, for example, can now prosecute cases in the courts and assess laws and regulations that appear to violate human rights (though if the Council of State has its way, this will all happen in secret). But by and large, for every step forward, there are two steps backward.

And although there is no Asia-wide human rights body, ASEAN has, after much huffing and puffing, created the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights. Even at its birth, it was widely criticized for its lack of independence in terms of what it can do, and how its members were selected. But there were also voices of optimism. Interpret the charter creatively; amend the terms of reference later if they don’t pass muster; rely on help from other bodies, such as NHRIs.

But the experience of Asian NHRIs teaches us that future progress will most likely be in reverse gear.

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).