Commissioner Louisa Coan Greve’s Statement on Obtaining Effective Remedies and Accountability for Major Rule of Law, Democracy and Human Rights Abuses

One of the most urgent and critical questions that the Commission of Inquiry continuously receives from groups and members of the Khmer community is: “How is the work of the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia going to produce meaningful and effective change? Why will the Hun Sen government pay attention to your work and recommendations when they have ignored so successfully similar reports, statements and findings issued by other highly respected international groups and agencies, including the United Nations? Why will the work of the Commission of Inquiry be different, and how will it produce meaningful change and accountability?

The Commission of Inquiry recognizes that the task of ending the major human rights, democracy and rule of law violations that have been taking place in Cambodia for such a long period of time is not an easy one. There is no one single “magic bullet” that will remedy these long-standing violations. One single agency or initiative cannot produce meaningful and effective change by itself. Instead, the Commission sees its role as being a catalyst, helping to activate and mobilize the full range of available international monitoring forums and platforms to generate a more unified and forceful set of pressure points that can be brought to bear on the government of Cambodia.

By providing a comprehensive and well documented review of the abuses taking place, by shining a more powerful spotlight on the problems that exist, by identifying very clearly the specific remedial actions that must take place, and by sending these messages to all the other international forums and platforms that work on these issues, we can make a difference. Instead of shining the light of just one candle on the abuses of the Hun Sen government that need attention, we will be working cooperatively and in unison with all the other international forums and mobilizing action from all the available tools in the human rights toolbox, to produce so powerful a spotlight on the problems that they cannot be so easily covered up or ignored.

As a first step in that strategy to mobilize a larger body of unified international pressures, we have been working for the past several weeks to provide the United Nations Human Rights Committee with a set of our interim findings and recommendations for use in their official review session on the government of Cambodia’s compliance under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, taking place this month (March 2022) at UN Headquarters in Geneva. We will be making similar outreach efforts to other major international agencies and forums in the coming months, to help organize and mobilize the type of broad based, coordinated, worldwide effort that can make a meaningful difference, and can produce effective change.

You can get a clearer picture of what the Commission of Inquiry will be doing with other international groups and forums in the coming months by taking a closer look at the Statement we just submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee for their March Cambodia compliance review session. In that Statement, which will be read on full shortly by Commissioner Paul Hoffman, we identified the major issues and developments that need urgent attention and action from the Human Rights Committee and provided documentation on each of the major problems and cases. We also highlighted four of the most recent cases where major rule of law concerns were raised, including: 1. the forced and unlawful return of Cambodian refugees from Thailand at the specific request of the Hun Sen government; 2. the mass criminal trials now in progress against leaders and members of the opposition political party, and the arrest on 2 January of the lead spokesperson for the defendants, Theary Seng; 3. the extrajudicial execution of a leader of the youth movement, Sin Khon, with indications that the government was involved; and, 4. The forced closing down of the environmental protection group Mother Nature, under threat of the arrest and criminal prosecution of their six in-country staffers. The Statement also identifies specific remedial actions that the Human Rights Committee needs to endorse and promote as part of its review process, in order to end the abuses that are taking place in an effective and meaningful way.

It should be mentioned that one of the avenues that will be receiving our considerable attention in the coming months as part of this more unified and coordinated international effort, will be on the economic front. The economic pressure points have been seriously underutilized in the past. The one exception was the recent decision by the EU to deny Cambodia continued trade benefits under their “Everything But Arms” preferential tariff system. This was a major step forward, linking trade preferences to concerns about Cambodia’s human rights abuses. It is a model that deserves to be strengthened and broadened with all of Cambodia’s individual major trade partners, with regard support for tourism to Cambodia, and with regard to consumers’ treatment of Cambodian made products more generally. The Commission plans to link with these other available forums and approaches, just as it has with the UN Human Rights Committee for their review session on Cambodia this March. Money talks, and the Commission recognizes that the economic pressure points need to play a major role in helping to change the rule of law, human rights and democracy picture in Cambodia.       

Among the other outreach efforts, in addition to the UN Human Rights Committee and the economic initiatives mentioned above, that the Commission of Inquiry will be making over the coming months, as part of the goal of mobilizing a broader and more effective international response, will be to: 1. Work more closely with the United Nations team of special rapporteurs and experts, including the newly named Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia, to encourage them to play a more active role in investigating recent abuses, and demanding effective remedial action; 2. Reach out to foreign governments, including the principal trade partners of Cambodia, to promote a broad based effort to put economic and political pressures on the Hun Sen government to demand meaningful reforms; and, 3. Give special and urgent attention to the four most recent and flagrant situations of gross violation of international rule of law standards by the Hun Sen government, including the forced refoulement of Cambodian refugees from Thailand, and the mass criminal show trials that currently are taking place.  Compliance with rule of law standards cannot be claimed just because the courts and law enforcement process are invoked to carry out politically motivated repression. It is vital that the courts of Cambodia operate on an independent and impartial basis, not as instruments of the government’s will. Our Commission’s next regular session in June will focus on these rule of law concerns, and will feature a comprehensive analysis of Cambodia’s rule of law violations by the International Commission of Jurists. 

I now would like to introduce my fellow Commissioner Paul Hoffman, who will read to you the full Statement that the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia is submitting to the UN Human Rights Committee for their March compliance review session on Cambodia – the first step in our Commission’s effort to mobilize the international community to move more forcefully, and in a more coordinated way, to produce meaningful progress towards human rights and democracy for the Khmer people.