Reinterpretation as a resistance: the contestation of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in Southeast Asia Postwar vision is signified by the strengthening of the institutionalised ideas of human rights protection, such as the international norm of R2P, that concerns on, rather than necessarily the security of state, the security and resilience of human through people-centred and people-oriented agenda, include: conflict prevention and resolution, peacebuilding, and the protection of population from mass atrocity crimes. To a greater extent, these ideas are structuring global discourse and state behaviour, albeit at the same time the meaning and implementation of them remain contested. In light of this condition, the institutionalised idea of human rights protection such as R2P is relatively dominant in global discourse and thus it is risky to be rejected. States may put their legitimacy and credibility on the risk if they reject such normative ideas. Rather than refuse the normativity of the idea of human rights protection in an open and frank manner, states use reinterpretation and contestation strategy to resist the use of the norm especially in their local context. By focusing on the international norm of R2P, draws upon 26 elite interviews with ASEAN stakeholders, this paper analyses the way ASEAN countries resist the implementation of R2P by reinterpreting and contesting the norm through their local perspective. The Imagined Economic Community of ASEAN?: Liberalization and the Unfortunate Impact of ASEAN Community Vision There have been many analyses about the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) include the readiness of ASEAN, the potential economic impact for the national, regional and international economy, and the forces that accelerate the process of the liberalization. However, the analysis of the possible impact of the AEC in regard to ASEAN basic idea of being a 'community' has been inadequately addressed. In complementary with the existing literature, this paper focuses on the project of the AEC, through the lens of common identity and the feeling of community, to examine the instilling of the great vision of ASEAN Community. It argues that the AEC project irritates and complicates, rather than enables and facilitates, the primary goals of implementing the tagline of ‘one vision, one identity and one community’. When considering the significant role of Southeast Asians tycoons in the formation of AEC, the economic liberalization primarily accelerate the accumulation of capital for business oligarchs and their cronies. In contrast, economic liberalization is expected to have an unfortunate impact on the majority of states and people in the region. When this scenario happens, the feeling of disappointed and suspicious are likely to exceed the ‘we feeling’ of the ASEAN’s fellow.