of individual people, and especially support the idea of human rights being an expectation to "women, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, migrant workers, and vulnerable and marginalised groups". It is also noteworthy that Article 10 the declaration directly affirms the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, although this initially appeared to be a positive move by the ASEAN, the commission has recently come under criticism from international human rights groups due to a lack of action from the ASEAN governments when it comes to enacting the declaration. It has even been suggested the declaration was made with no genuine intentions behind it for true endorsement. Asian Human Rights Commission The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) was founded in 1984 and continues to be an active, outspoken group who intend to promote human rights throughout Asia. The group is particularly interesting as it is completely independent from any state, and acts with the sole intention of promoting awareness on topical human rights issues within Asia. AHRC have stated "Many Asian states have guarantees of human rights in their constitutions, and many of them have ratified international instruments on human rights. However, there continues to be a wide gap between rights enshrined in these documents and the abject reality that denies people their rights. Asian states must take urgent action to implement the human rights of their citizens and residents." Human-rights controversy in East Asia Differences to Western Civilization When looking at the different approaches western and eastern civilizations take to human rights, a former senior minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew said this: "The Confucianist view of order between subject and ruler helps in the rapid transformation of society ... in other words, you fit yourself into society – the exact opposite of the American rights of the individual. I believe that what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy. Democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions." Generally speaking, western people are more suspicious of their powerful government officials. Selfless, uncorrupted government officials are considered a rarity rather than norm and theories of people in power being involved in bribery or fraud are all too often proven true. Western civilization has a political history based around the people overcoming struggles to take their freedom, which is considered by most to be an innate right of human beings. Eastern Civilization's tend to take a different approach to