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This chapter explains how and why religious charity and secular humanitarianism have been legally separated into two distinctive fields in India. It first describes the nature and extent of religious giving in India, and notes that $92 million is donated annually to Hindu shrines. It then looks at three legislative contexts that helped in forming the divide, namely the British Trust law, the formation of the secular constitution of early postindependence India and Personal Law, and the control of modern nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) through Tax Law. It presents a summary of the scope and practice of Hindu religious giving, and then studies how distinctions between secular and religious giving were legally recorded during a period of colonial “noninterference” in Indian custom and religion.

This chapter introduces the responsibility to provide (R2Provide) and furnishes a sense of the diplomatic, normative and political conditions from which the notion emerged. The policy and academic debate sparked by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 and the post-crisis reconstruction effort helped shape the terms and references of the evolving sense of collective responsibility among Southeast Asian countries. What emerged was not surprising given the region’s enduring deference to the non-interference norm. Contrary to the R2P’s assumption that prospective targets of intervention bear the onus to justify to their prospective interveners why they do not deserve to be intervened against, the R2Provide places the onus instead on prospective recipients of assistance to invite or request their prospective helpers to exercise their responsibility to provide. That said, guided by Levinas’ ethics, the book goes on to contend that both recipient and provider equally share the obligation and responsibility to furnish succour, safety and security to affected populations: the recipient through her grant of consent and invitation, on one hand, the provider through her contributions of aid, assistance and the like on the other.

This chapter draws the study to a close with a summary of the book’s key claims and arguments.Judging by the region’s mixed record, a ‘cup half full’ approach allows at best the conclusion that Southeast Asian states and ASEAN are working toward realising their aspirations and turning words into deeds. So much more remains to be done. Essentially, rather than the mere absence of conflict and war, this book has sought, through the R2Provide, to offer a positive conception of Southeast Asia’s international relations, one that ultimately aims to improve the conditions and lives of the recipient countries and societies with whom responsible providers engage – even as, it should be said, the provider countries and societies are themselves enriched for having refreshed others. What this book has presented as the growing ethic of responsible provision undertaken by Southeast Asian countries – selectively and unevenly, needless to say, but incrementally – could be the proverbial small steps leading over time to a giant leap toward a more hospitable and responsible region. Paraphrasing Levinas, faced with their others, perhaps Southeast Asians will come to demand more of themselves.

Chapter 1 examines the conceptions of Indigenous self-determination. It begins with an overview of the global political discourse of Indigenous self-determination as a foundational right articulated especially within the UN framework since the 1980s. Drawing on the author’s fieldwork and building on Iris Marion Young’s concept of nondomination and Jennifer Nedelsky’s theory of relational autonomy, the chapter develops a theory of Indigenous self-determination that posits it as a foundational value that seeks to restructure all relations of domination, including gender, governance, colonial social and material relations, and unequal relations of justice. The chapter argues that an exclusive focus on the rights discourse provides a limited legalistic and state-centered conception of Indigenous self-determination that does not reflect the breadth of Indigenous self-determination, nor pays adequate attention to relations of domination beyond the state. In the participant interviews, Indigenous self-determination was defined in much broader terms than political autonomy construed as having control of one’s own affairs and decision-making powers as a distinct entity. Instead of focusing on politics and international law, the participants typically discussed the underlying values shaping their conceptions of Indigenous self-determination such as relationality, the paramount significance of the land, and freedom from domination.

ASEAN has long promoted its key interests in a stable and autonomous Southeast by binding outside powers to ASEAN’s norms and institutions. Today, domestic political change, divergent interests among ASEAN countries, and the changing balance of power in the Asia-Pacific are eroding the ASEAN cohesion necessary for a collective ASEAN external policy. ASEAN policy is based on soft power and therefore is dependent on a stable balance of power. China’s rise has upset that balance, triggering Sino-American tensions and conflicts with some Southeast Asian states. ASEAN’s goals of regional stability and autonomy from great power hegemony are increasingly coming into conflict, which may force ASEAN members to choose between them.

This chapter deals with the policies of the British colonial government during the colonial period, when the norm of noninterference was established. The state defines the agenda on the personal laws, illustrating a gap between the rhetoric and the actions of noninterference in the personal laws. The social reform legislation ordained under the rubric of piecemeal legislation was apparently intended to benefit Indian women. Official or legislative consideration of the codification and reform of Hindu personal law came in British India in 1921, and 1943-4. The government supported the codification of Muslim personal law in 1937 and 1939. Changes to Hindu and Muslim personal laws were vindicated as conforming to popular demand and community opinion. Despite the rhetoric of community demand and popular support, it was the colonial state that ultimately decided whether, when, what, and how any changes to the personal laws would be made.

This chapter discusses the historical development of the major Hindu nationalist political parties; their policies on noninterference and the personal laws; the actions of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar in the Muslim Women Bill (MWB) controversy of the 1980s; and their position during the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. The Indian Supreme Court has decisively favoured the introduction of a uniform civil code. The tension between the BJP's agenda and the NDA's agenda came to a head with the introduction of a Private Member's Bill to enact a uniform civil code. The policies of the BJP were marked by both continuity and disjunctive with prior governments, colonial and postcolonial. The 2004 election manifestos of the BJP and the Congress Party were unique for each party. The conceptions of Indian society and religion, unity, disunity, and identity were mediated by the personal laws as the manifestation of religion and community in law.

This chapter presents an argument in opposition to that presented by Michael Tooley; Tooley’s argument states that initiating a causal process is morally equivalent to refraining from interfering in that process. This argument fails to offer any plausible ground for this allegedly significant notion of interfering in the actions of others such that it has sufficient force to overturn the objection of equating actions which are morally distinct. As a principle of morality, it serves no useful purpose because, in preventing the causal process that will result in serious harm, one’s interference in another person’s actions is not a morally significant feature. Justifying this principle of noninterference also presents problems, as its inclusion substantially restricts the number of cases to which Tooley’s Moral Symmetry Principle applies.

Self-determination is at issue for urban poor participating in jams and music therapy using popular songs in the Downtown Eastside. Self-determination, in one meaning, refers to an individual’s capability to determine his or her own actions. The human right to self-determination refers to legally defined peoples that (seek to) determine their own governance. A people cannot emerge, though, if individuals and small groups cannot self-determine to form a larger social unit. The popular music scene of the Downtown Eastside is a social setting that may block the capability of urban poor to determine their own actions as individuals and in small groups. Some music therapists limit and erode the self-determination of urban poor, coopting the poor’s self-determination of their own music-making and music-learning. Suppression of self-determination also emerged when music jam participants excluded original popular songs composed by other participants. Rejecting original songs suppressed the capabilities involved in creating new music, and human rights included in song creation and performance. Other music facilitators respond to various self-determination tensions among music initiative organizers and participants with the social work method of noninterference adapted to music-making. Many of these examples result in human rights conflicts and violations.

This chapter examines special cases of “cultural preservation” requests, where minority groups ask for noninterference. These claims cannot be justified in terms of a commitment to political inclusion. The chapter examines two cases: exemption from mandatory education, as requested by Amish and Orthodox Jewish communities, and exemption from majority state conflict-resolution procedures, as requested by many religious communities. The chapter argues that the majority’s response ought to be framed in terms of how best to keep opportunities for political inclusion open and available over the long term and that the choice made with respect to requested exemptions may well require compromise on both sides. The host community must proceed by protecting the basis for trust relations between culturally segregated groups and the majority community, on the grounds that this trust will sometimes be required to facilitate political cooperation in times of emergency. To illustrate the latter, the challenges faced in New York City as it combated the spread of Covid-19 in Orthodox Jewish communities are examined.