ASEAN needs to develop a more comprehensive way to resolve disputes, said senior Singapore diplomat and former ASEAN chief Ong Keng Yong.

This includes reviewing and making recommendations to improve a 2004 protocol, which covered enhanced dispute settlement mechanisms to resolve economic disputes. Another way is to ensure that a 2010 protocol to the ASEAN Charter on dispute settlement mechanisms would apply in future instruments, so as to encourage its use in resolving non-economic disputes, said Mr Ong, who headed Asean from 2003 to 2008.

Organised by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, The Asia Foundation and the United States Embassy, the ambassador-at-large was speaking to more than 70 academics and experts from the region, including Mr Walter Douglas, US deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs, public diplomacy and regional and security policy in East Asia and the Pacific.