Rhona Smith | |
---|---|
United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia | |
In office 2015–2021 | |
Personal details | |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | University of Strathclyde (PhD) |
Occupation | International human rights lawyer |
Rhona K. M. Smith is a British legal academic. She is professor of international human rights and former head of Newcastle Law School at Newcastle University [1] [2] and was the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia. [3] [4] [5]
Smith was criticised by the Cambodian government for behaving like a "teacher in a classroom". Smith had questioned the 2018 elections where Cambodian People's Party had taken all 125 seats. She noted that 118 politicians had been arrested and the courts had dissolved an opposition party, ignoring the constitution which expected a multi-party state. [6] In March 2021, Smith joined three other UN special rapporteurs in criticising lengthy jail terms given to Cambodian opposition leaders living in exile for seeking to return to Cambodia and foment popular opposition to the continued rule of Prime Minister Hun Sen. [7]
Smith served two three-year terms as special rapporteur for Cambodia, completing her service in March 2021, at which time she was succeeded in that office by Thai scholar Vitit Muntarbhorn. [8] [9]
After the fall of the Pol Pot regime of Democratic Kampuchea, Cambodia was under Vietnamese occupation and a pro-Hanoi government, the People's Republic of Kampuchea, was established. A civil war raged during the 1980s opposing the government's Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Armed Forces against the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, a government in exile composed of three Cambodian political factions: Prince Norodom Sihanouk's FUNCINPEC party, the Party of Democratic Kampuchea and the Khmer People's National Liberation Front (KPNLF).
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
The human rights situation in Cambodia is facing growing criticisms both within the country and from an increasingly alarmed international community. After a series of flagrant violations against basic human rights a feeling of incertitude regarding the direction the country is emerging, sometimes comparing the situation to a newborn Burma.
Human rights in Thailand have long been a contentious issue. The country was among the first to sign the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and seemed committed to upholding its stipulations; in practice, however, those in power have often abused the human rights of the Thai nation with impunity. From 1977 to 1988, Amnesty International (AI) reported that there were whitewashed cases of more than one thousand alleged arbitrary detentions, fifty forced disappearances, and at least one hundred instances of torture and extrajudicial killings. In the years since then, AI demonstrated that little had changed, and Thailand's overall human rights record remained problematic. A 2019 HRW report expanded on AI's overview as it focuses specifically on the case of Thailand, as the newly government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha assumes power in mid-2019, Thailand's human rights record shows no signs of change.
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