A/HRC/15/47
46.
In addition, the Office worked with selected companies to encourage them to apply
human rights standards beyond merely obeying national law. For instance, it gave legal
advice to a multinational rubber company. Prompted partly by this advice, the company
conducted an extensive environmental and social impact assessment, including an analysis
on how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples applied to its
rubber plantation. The Office contributed to this assessment. Since then the company has
been taking measures to mitigate the impact of its plantation on people’s livelihood and
land. Other companies have agreed to negotiate solutions with affected villagers, or to
exclude the land used by villagers from their concessions.
47.
At policy level, the Office continued to draw attention to the need to strengthen the
protection of indigenous land. It participated in discussions on “joint monitoring indicators”
between the Government and development partners in this regard. Since the adoption of the
Sub-Decree on indigenous land registration in April 2009, the Government has taken
important steps to legally register communities and facilitate the subsequent registration of
their land. The pace of this land registration is however very slow. It is for this reason that
the Office recommends that temporary measures be taken to protect those communities
until they can effectively receive titles.
48.
OHCHR also closely followed the work of NGOs and communities involved in land
disputes and sought to defend their rights and seek remedies through cadastral
administration and the courts. In most, if not all cases, these institutions failed to uphold
their rights and deliver justice. Instead, criminal charges were brought against villagers and
human rights defenders. For instance, in the 31 disputes mentioned above, 45 people were
arrested and detained. The Office provided advice to the relevant authorities in several
instances to ensure due process of law, which resulted in the release of several of the
farmers. It supported the documentation of land disputes by communities themselves,
which resulted in the submission of a third round of countrywide community complaints to
national authorities in August 2009. These collective efforts in 2008 and 2009 have
remained unanswered.
49.
Together with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) the Office initiated
a project to raise awareness among business enterprises and NGOs of their corporate social
and human rights responsibilities. In November 2009, it conducted a two-day training
course for 30 NGO representatives on human rights and business. It has been supporting the
CCHR in conducting workshops with private businesses to raise their awareness about the
human rights implications of their activities. This is the first time that such issues have been
discussed in Cambodia
V.
Prison reform
50.
The Office continued to implement its Prison Reform Support Programme (PRSP), a
partnership with the Ministry of Interior aimed at supporting the transformation of prisons
from a system of confinement to one of rehabilitation, complying with the international
human rights norms. Support is provided in four areas: (a) legal reform, (b) training of
prison personnel, (c) assessment of prison conditions and prisoners’ treatment, and
(d) water and sanitation.
51.
The programme looked at existing legislation. Prisons have been organized on the
basis of a variety of secondary legislation, including a royal decree, governmental subdecrees, ministerial proclamations and circulars, but no law. To address this shortcoming,
the Government decided to adopt a Law on Prisons. The Ministry of Interior initiated a
draft, which was shared with the Office for legal analysis and comments, so as to build in
protection safeguards. In consultation with relevant stakeholders including UNICEF and
12
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents