BANGKOK -- When ASEAN agreed in 1993 to consider creating a regional human-rights monitoring body, some member countries that weren't really enthusiastic about the idea probably thought they were safe. At the time, there seemed no way it could ever happen. For ASEAN, human rights was so sensitive that it was rarely discussed publicly, and one of ASEAN's cardinal principles was that members must not meddle in the "internal affairs" of other members.

Major obstacles remain, and a human-rights body won't be formed any time soon by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. But the effort has been making headway as the ASEAN agenda opens up, and officials interviewed at last week's annual ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Bangkok said the question is not whether the body will be formed but when.

"Probably it will take a few years, but I think it's inevitably coming," said Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, whose country joined the meeting as a regular "dialogue partner" of ASEAN. "In the time that I've been foreign minister, 4 1/4 years, it's extraordinary how human-rights issues have worked their way up the agenda of ASEAN countries. . . . Even Myanmar is talking about establishing an independent human-rights commission."