Latest Entries

The report, submitted in accordance with resolution 18/25 of 26 September 2011 of the Human Rights Council, is an assessment of the human rights impact of economic land concessions (ELCs) and other land concessions and major development projects in Cambodia (generally referred to as ―land concessions‖ throughout the report unless otherwise specified). It includes not only an analysis of concessions pertaining to agro- industry (for example, rubber, sugar, acacia and cassava plantations), but also to concessions for mining, oil and gas, forestry, and concessions for the purposes of tourism, property development, and large scale infrastructure, such as hydropower dams.

The Working Group is aware of the Cambodian Government’s (hereafter “the Government”) stated efforts to comply with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereafter “the Covenant”), as detailed in its State Party Report 2008 on Covenant implementation to the Committee. These measures have been insufficient to ensure the implementation of the Covenant with regard to Article 11(1) on the right to adequate housing, as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. The Government has failed in its obligations to protect, respect and fulfil the right to adequate housing as interpreted by the Committee in its General Comments No. 4 on the right to adequate housing and General Comment No. 7 on forced evictions. While this failure has occurred with respect to most or all elements of the right to adequate housing, this report focuses on the most severe violation of the right, the failure to guarantee legal security of tenure and the resulting epidemic of forced evictions across Cambodia.

Most of Cambodia’s people live in rural areas and depend on Cambodia’s land and natural resources for their livelihoods and subsistence. Today, pressures of a growing population, the loss and degradation of natural resources, and increasingly restricted access to land and forests are among the factors that are putting the welfare of the rural poor at ever greater risk. How land and natural resources are managed and administered, by whom, and for whose benefit, is crucial for continued political and economic stability in Cambodia.