Thailand’s candidature for UN Human Rights Council prompts assessment of its record

Rebecca Root, IBA Southeast Asia Correspondent Thursday 4 April 2024

When the UN Human Rights Council elections take place later in 2024, Thailand is hoping it’ll be voted in to take a seat on the intergovernmental body, which works to protect and promote human rights. But, with what some call a ‘dubious’ human rights record, there are calls for Thailand’s candidacy to be blocked, while others see the pre-election period as an opportunity for the country to address its deficits.

‘States really need to examine how Thailand is performing in its protection and promotion of human rights domestically and we see, at the moment, considerable concerns in Thailand’s protection of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly’, says Katherine Gerson, Thailand Campaigner at Amnesty International.

Further, while Thailand has ‘maintained a generous asylum policy’, according to the UN’s Refugee Agency, it hasn’t ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, meaning those fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Myanmar, for example, have no legal status and are vulnerable to arrest or deportation. In a 2022 report, non-profit organisation Freedom House reported that protection for individuals from foreign governments in Thailand is ‘limited and ad hoc’.

Against this background, Thailand’s application for membership of the Council sends an ‘alarming’ message, says Gerson. The Thai government, however, believes it has a chance of success, says Emilie Palamy Pradichit, Founder and Executive Director of the Thailand-based human rights organisation Manushya Foundation, because its human rights record isn’t as bad as that of other countries in the region. For example, Myanmar’s military regime has been accused of torturing children and persecuting ethnic minorities, the Cambodian government has banned political opposition and Malaysia still criminalises homosexuality.

Thailand’s bid for a Council seat could, however, be an opportunity to address its issues, says Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate, Advocacy Lead at Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. ‘It is a good time for the international community to urge Thailand […] to start resolving domestic human rights issues so it is ready to […] assume the duties and responsibilities of the UN Human Rights Council’, he says.

The steps it could take have already been laid out in reports such as the Council’s 2021 Universal Periodic Review, in which states called for Thailand’s laws on the right to protest to be updated; the passing of legislation to protect against the use of strategic lawsuits to repress public participation; and amendments to the country’s Computer Crimes Act to safeguard expression online. ‘We would call on the government to ensure that it effectively implements some of the recommendations on which we’ve actually seen steps backwards in recent years’, says Gerson. For example, in 2022, the government approved a new Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, but in 2023 postponed the enforcement of certain articles within the legislation, making implementation difficult.

As of December 2022, 123 UN member states had served as Council members, many of which also had ‘dubious’ human rights records. For this reason, Lloyd Nicholas Danduan Vergara, SPPI Council Liaison Officer for the IBA War Crimes Committee and Court Attorney VI at the Supreme Court of the Philippines, believes Thailand should gain membership. ‘Even the Council’s predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission, had the same controversy’, he says. ‘Also, Thailand will represent the ASEAN way of dealing with human rights issues; a balance of the principle of non-interference, principle of consensus and diplomatic relations.’

Bahiddha-Nukara has suggested that Thailand is a ‘bridge-builder; that could create synergies and solidarity’. But the worry, Pradichit says, is that if Thailand is elected without addressing its issues, people will lose trust in the UN system. ‘The issue we have is that we are in authoritarian or semi-authoritarian countries where we don’t have access to justice so we have to go through the UN to put pressure on governments’, she explains. Without faith in the UN, the only option people have in such countries to try to protect human rights is to protest, which could lead to imprisonment, she says.

The government will also then believe that as a member of the Council ‘they must be doing something right’, says Pranom Somwong, Country Representative for Thailand at Protection International, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to the protection of human rights defenders. This will make the work of human rights groups harder, Pradichit says, as they’ll have to collate more evidence to convince people that human rights violations are happening.

At the same time, Thailand’s Council seat could signal to other states in the region that they can continue to ignore human rights, Chaimaneekarakate says. With this in mind, ahead of the election, Chaimaneekarakate believes advocates must educate other countries about Thailand’s various human rights issues so that they too can call for reform.

Social change is the only way to improve Thailand’s human rights record, says Vergara. ‘All of us are works in progress, but, we should not be held accountable or assessed purely on Western standards but based on the dynamism of our societies and the efforts we are taking to improve, however slowly, our respective human rights records’, he adds.

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