Full pdf joint statement | See the statement on the UN Website | Watch the debate on WEbTV starting at 1:23:20, with LRWC’s statement at 2:25:00
Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
Item 10: Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia
Date: 2 October 2026
Speaker: Catherine Morris
Oral Statement to the 63rd Session of the UN Human Rights Council from Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and Lawyers for Lawyer, NGOs in special consultative status
Cambodia: Halt impunity for human rights violations including transnational repression
Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, the International Commission of Jurists, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and Lawyers for Lawyers, agree with the Special Rapporteur that respect for human rights is key to resolving multiple crises in Cambodia.[1]
For decades, Special Procedures have urged Cambodia to ensure:
- independence of the judiciary and legal profession;
- adequate, independent legal aid; and
- independent and impartial investigations of rights violations.
Yet, Cambodia continues its long-standing pattern of harassment, unfair trials, arbitrary detention of human rights defenders, and transnational repression of defenders and dissidents, as well as impunity for unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, and abduction and refoulement of defenders to other countries.
We condemn the enforced disappearances of defenders, Nguyen Duc Thuan and Tran Hiep[2] who were reportedly abducted on 18 September 2026 while en route to Thailand, and forcibly taken to Viet Nam where they now face fabricated terrorism charges.
We urge the Council to call on Cambodia to:
- implement recommendations of Special Procedures and treaty bodies;
- release all arbitrarily detained defenders; and
- halt impunity for extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and forcible renditions to other countries.
We also ask what actions the Special Rapporteur recommends to curtail Cambodia’s involvement in transnational repression.
Thank you.
[1] Tom Andrews, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, End of Mission Statement, 31 July 2026, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2026/08/tom-andrews-un-special-rapporteur-situation-human-rights-cambodia. The Report of the Special Rapporteur, A/HRC/63/79, was not available at the time of drafting.[2] Tran Hiep is also known as Ho Pham Hiep Huy.
