A week after UN rights envoy Yash Ghai resigned his post in September, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) downgraded the special representative position in Cambodia to Special Rapporteur, sparking fears the UN is reducing its commitments in the country.
Under the new system, the rapporteur reports to the HRC, not to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The rapporteur position is slightly downgraded, but the mandate remains essentially the same as the special representative," Christophe Peschoux, director of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Cambodia, told IRIN.
Former envoy Ghai, a Kenyan lawyer, had experienced repeated personal attacks from Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen after his criticisms of the government.
"This is a question of personality, and interpretation about how to conduct this sensitive mandate, not of the mandate itself," Peschoux said. "The Prime Minister said he will never receive Yash Ghai but will receive his successor, who is to be appointed by the Council."
Rather than being limited only to Cambodia, Peschoux said the change was part of a wider consolidation trend among member states to simplify UN human rights procedures.
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According to a report by Ghai, land laws are "regularly" violated "with impunity by influential individuals, companies and government entities".
Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith could not be reached to comment on Ghai’s report despite repeated phone calls.
Adhoc, a Cambodian human rights watchdog, estimated 50,000 people were evicted for development in 2006 and 2007. Licadho, another Cambodian NGO, said 30,000 have been displaced by evictions in the past five years.
"It appears that the office [OHCHR] is not holding the Cambodian government ... to its promises on UN conventions," Ou Virak, director of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, told IRIN. "The government has failed to file its human rights report to the [UN] Human Rights Committee in the past."
"The new programme [the special rapporteur] means the UN and government are making weak compromises on human rights," Pa Ngoun Teang, secretary-general of the Cambodia human rights working group for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), told IRIN.
But Peschoux said cooperation made more sense than stirring controversy.
"My experience with several major international human rights and humanitarian organisations, with different approaches to human rights protection," he said, "has taught me that there is no effective rights protection without effective dialogue and practical engagement with those who have the power to effect changes, [which are] government authorities."
Embattled history
The UN special representative and Cambodian government have been at loggerheads over rights issues since 1993, after the UN peacekeeping force (UNTAC) completed its mandate.
"The law of the gun has been replaced with the law of the dollar," Peschoux said, having worked for OHCHR from 1993 to 1999 before he returned in 2007. "The 1990s was a decade that was heavily influenced by the previous 30 years of conflict. This really was a post-conflict situation."
This decade, Peschoux said, is "marked by peace and its consolidation" and issues of development have taken over from issues of violence.
"Another form of violence has appeared, generated by unregulated economic development practices, violence against the poor and the most vulnerable," he said.
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
