ALSA 2025 meeting

This paper explores how the legal harmonisation of multimodal transport under the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Multimodal Transport (AFAMT) reflects and confronts the deeper paradoxes of ASEAN regional integration. Just as multimodal transport aligns distinct transport modes into a seamless operation, ASEAN’s broader integration must reconcile legal, economic, and cultural diversity within a coherent framework. The AFAMT symbolises this ambition. It aims to reduce legal fragmentation through minimum harmonisation and mutual recognition approaches. However, full implementation remains incomplete. Persistent challenges, particularly uneven development, legal uncertainty, and institutional constraints, continue to obstruct progress. These difficulties mirror ASEAN’s core dilemma on how to build a unified regional framework while respecting the diversity and autonomy of its member states.
This paper argues that the AFAMT is not merely a technical legal instrument for transport integration but a regional legal imperative that encapsulates ASEAN’s aspiration for unity in diversity. Harmonising multimodal transport law is both a practical necessity and a normative commitment to regional coherence. It embodies the effort to achieve functionality without uniformity and coherence without centralisation. Realising its full potential requires a coordinated, inclusive, and flexible approach that supports institutional strengthening and equitable legal development across the region. In this way, multimodal transport integration reflects ASEAN’s deeper pursuit of “one vision, one identity, one community.”