Things have been difficult for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), pretty much from the start. The one thing the UN-backed court charged with holding the leadership of the Khmer Rouge responsible for their crimes had going for it was that its first defendant, Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his nom de […]
Southeast Asia has officially joined the ranks of Europe, the Americas, and Africa in launching their own regional human rights commission. Speculation on the proposed human rights body for The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has dominated political commentary in the region for the past year. Yet, now that the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights […]
Cambodia has never been known as a haven for free speech and political dissent, but several recent developments in the country have observers even more concerned about the shrinking space for political expression. Last week, a Cambodian court found an outspoken opposition MP guilty of defamation for filing her own defamation suit against Prime Minister […]
At the recent ASEAN Regional Forum in Thailand, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, before the the 25 nations present, officially confirmed a substantial shift in U.S. foreign policy when she stated: ‘On behalf of our country and the Obama administration, I want to send a very clear message that the United States is back, that we […]
I wrote before that – Future political integration is dependent on ASEAN resolving its many territorial disputes. There is still a high level of nationalism in the region; member-countries are suspicious of each other due to centuries of conflict, followed by colonial isolation. These disputes were recently surveyed on Capital Hill, by Richard P. Cronin, […]
The United States maybe in the initial stages of a Southeast Asian foreign policy overhaul; the Obama Administration is not only reconsidering its sanctions against Myanmar, but also reevaluating America’s policy toward the entire Southeast Asian region. Brian McCartan has an informative article on the recent removal of Cambodia and Laos from the United States’ […]
This past week at the UN-backed Tribunal in Cambodia, survivors of the Khmer Rouge’s infamous Tuol Sleng ‘S-21’ facility gave chilling accounts of the tortures they endured and witnessed – and in two cases, how their artwork saved them. The testimony comes as part of the trial of the former head of internal security and […]
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