Some rights activists and diplomats contend that Washington has lost leverage in Asia after leaving the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
By Shibani Mahtani Shibani Mahtani Reporter covering Southeast Asia Email Bio Follow April 12 at 4:00 AM HONG KONG — When more than 100 members of Congress raised worries in 2014 over plans to include Brunei in a sweeping Pacific trade deal, envoys from the tiny sultanate rushed to Washington with a message: We may be thinking about stricter Islamic laws, but we won’t really enforce them.
Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah an event in Bandar Seri Begawan on April 3, 2019. And Brunei quietly moved ahead with the laws it once said would never be carried out. The final phase came into effect April 3, sending a ripple through LGBT and minority communities in the country. Later, a State Department spokesman said that the United States “regularly communicate[s] with the government of Brunei regarding human rights and encourage[s] it to uphold its international commitments on human rights.”Experts studying the sultanate say the move to implement the new Islamic law-guided penal codes has been in the works for decades and could have happened anyway even with U.S. pressure.
“Age may be playing a role, but I think it really was inevitable,” Müller added. “They have committed so much to it, that it is inevitable to now have it on paper.” Even without the new laws, the nonsecular country has never been a comfortable place for LGBT individuals.
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