Why Soft Legalisation Persists: Crisis Absorption and the Political Logic of ASEAN Haze Governance

This article examines why soft legalisation persists in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) despite recurrent transboundary haze crises. Moving beyond deficit-oriented explanations, it develops a diagnostic framework linking normative framing, legalisation design, and governance outcomes. Focusing on the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (AATHP), the article argues that soft legalisation reflects a politically calibrated governance strategy shaped by sovereignty sensitivity and distributive constraints. Rather than functioning as a regulatory instrument aimed at behavioural transformation, the agreement operates as a platform for managing the political consequences of recurring haze episodes. Empirically, the analysis traces the design, activation, and institutional evolution of the AATHP, showing how low obligation, limited precision, and weak delegation preserve intergovernmental consensus while limiting environmental transformation. By conceptualising crisis absorption as a governance outcome, the article contributes to debates on regional environmental governance and institutional design in Southeast Asia and comparative studies of sovereignty-sensitive regional cooperation under recurrent environmental crisis conditions.