Canada is a founding participant in the ASEAN Regional Forum by virtue of its being an ASEAN Dialogue Partner rather than because it had a strategic role to play in East Asia in the traditional sense. In the ARF, Ottawa has in recent years been. promoting the concept of "human security" according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, "a people-centred approach to foreign policy which recognizes that lasting stability cannot be achieved until people are protected from violent threats to their rights, safety or lives". 85 Canada raises issues of human rights in the ARF and in the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conferences under this rubric and that of states' "responsibility to protect".