Jakarta – Indonesia is to sign up to a charter committing Southeast Asian nations to the principles of democracy and human rights, its foreign ministry said Wednesday.

A special committee from the House of Representatives has determined to ratify the agreement, ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said.

Indonesia is the last member of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that has not ratified the charter, after the Philippines signed up on Tuesday.

ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Faizasyah said the charter would strengthen the regional bloc, often dismissed as a talking shop which fails to confront human rights abuses in member countries like military-ruled Myanmar.

Myanmar's ratification was one of the reasons Indonesia was slow to sign up, he said.

"At first, we felt that if countries like Myanmar are not obliged to comply with what they sign, then ratifying the charter would be worthless," he said. "But Myanmar's ratification is progress. We're counting on Myanmar to gradually comply with the charter," he said.

The charter requires ASEAN to uphold ideals of democracy and human rights and to make legally binding commitments. It also envisages the creation of a massive free trade zone by 2015.

The charter has been criticised for lacking a solid mechanism for enforcing human rights. Indonesia's parliament is expected to ratify to bill next week.