While ASEAN still lacks a regional refugee framework, when it comes to burden sharing, member countries have already shown that they can work together on the issue. We can see the evidence in the Indochinese crisis of 1975 to 1995. As a result of war, some 1.4 million refugees fled Cambodia and Vietnam, seeking asylum in neighbouring countries. Under the Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA), Southeast Asian countries agreed to provide temporary asylum.
The Comprehensive Plan of Action (CPA) is a program, adopted in June, 1989 at a conference in Geneva held by The Steering Committee of the International Conference on Indo-Chinese Refugees, which was designed to deter and to stop the continuing influx of Indochinese boat people and to cope with an increasing reluctance by third countries to maintain resettlement opportunities for every Vietnamese or Laotian exile, with the threat of countries of first asylum in Southeast Asia to push-backs the asylum seekers.