ASEAN countries tend to develop their own specific policies and practices in dealing with the refugee crisis. These policies and practices are mostly marked by their changeable, ad-hoc, and optional Refugee Convention, any policies and practices that do emerge are not necessarily obligatory and compliance is not guaranteed. Instead they tend to only endorse the state's national interests, particularly in terms of domestic security and development, rather than to prioritize the interest and destiny of refugees. By not ignoring the conventional solutions to refugee crisis, efforts to resolve refugee crisis in the region should be broadened and go beyond these conventional ones. A new paradigm is unquestionably needed to address the refugee crisis in the region. The most pressing issue is currently finding a creative, innovative and strategic solution to the refugee crisis in the region.

Almost no ASEAN countries have put forth any individual or regional plan to address the ongoing humanitarian needs of the Rohingya. Since the ending of the Indochinese refugee crisis, almost non of the regional framework or collective instrument that had been used then can be found now for the Rohingyas. In most of the cases, ASEAN has only focused on providing immediate and temporary solutions, instead of preventive, durable and innovative ones. ASEAN should realize this by addressing the lack of a legal framework for protecting refugees in ASEAN. If not, the refugee crisis will continue to effect the region with no end in sight. The absence of an operational regional framework in ASEAN mainly means that the region is poorly equipped to effectively respond to and address the refugee crisis in the region. ASEAN's efforts have so far been simply limited to calling Special or Ministerial Meeting in responding the Rohingya refugee crisis.