As one of only twelve UN country-specific mandate holders, and as the longest-serving UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia, my work has had a significant impact on the situation of human rights in that country, with many of my recommendations having been implemented by the government. The Parliament of Cambodia has enacted three fundamental laws designed to enhance the independence and capacity of the judiciary, and has amended the Constitution of the country to make the National Election Commission a constitutional, independent, and autonomous body, in line with my recommendations. In this paper I examine the role of the UN country-specific mandate holders, the approach that I took to implement my mandate in Cambodia, and the impact of my work in that country.

If a state has waived state immunity by agreement with a non-state entity in advance of court proceedings brought by that entity to enforce an arbitral award against that state, then the enforcement court should give effect to the waiver. That is the opposite of what the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal decided in Democratic Republic of the Congo v. FG Hemisphere, but it is the approach reflected in the 2004 United Nations Convention on the Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property. After examining that Hong Kong case and that United Nations Convention, this paper considers the position in various jurisdictions. The prevalent position is in general terms that consent to arbitration usually constitutes waiver of state immunity from jurisdiction of a court to recognize the arbitral award as creating a debt binding on the state, but usually does not constitute waiver of state immunity from execution of that debt against the assets of the state. The conclusion of the paper includes a model waiver of state immunity from jurisdiction and from execution.

The entry into force of the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA) in 2012 brought ASEAN closer towards the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. Nonetheless, a new concern arises regarding the fate of twenty-six Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) that exist among the ASEAN governments. This may raise confusion for the ASEAN governments regarding the applicable standards of investment protection to grant investors. Indonesia was chosen as a case-study because its Investment Coordinating Board recognizes the importance of understanding Indonesia's obligations under the BITs within the context of the ACIA regime, and is in the midst of reviewing its BITs. This paper seeks to provide a better understanding of the interactions between and among these agreements to ensure that the ASEAN governments’ policies comply with their legal obligations. It also provides recommendations on how they could streamline the standards and work towards a single regime of investment protection.

The Anti-Dumping (AD) mechanism is susceptible to potential misuse for protectionist purposes, and the current explosion of AD disputes indicate a massive problem in the way international trade rules are implemented. The current World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations have identified areas within the Anti-Dumping Agreement (ADA) for possible reform; accordingly, the present analysis discusses these areas of concern relating to the AD provision. First, recent trends in AD practice will be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to show the growing role of Asian economies. In particular, the traditional targets of AD activism, China and India, have initiated a number of AD investigations over the last decade, while imposing final measures on several occasions. Second, the ADA will be examined alongside a discussion of the potential risks of misinterpretation. Third, the paper will analyze all the complaints lodged at the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) on ADA to date.

Despite a noticeable shift in recent years, indigenous peoples in Asia continue to experience many forms of human rights violations, with the most serious perhaps being the loss of traditional lands and territories. The purpose of this paper is to examine indigenous peoples’ land rights and its application in Southeast Asia. To that end, the paper will provide an overview of the development of indigenous peoples’ land rights internationally; offer regional perspectives from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights; analyze the concept of indigenous peoples in Asia, juxtaposing it with concurrent difficulties being experienced on the African continent; examine three countries (Cambodia, the Philippines, and Malaysia) that recognize indigenous peoples’ land rights to some extent, whether through constitutional amendments, legislative reform, or domestic jurisprudence; and highlight the implementation gap between the rights of indigenous peoples in law and practice.

This paper assesses the extent to which the recently formulated Chinese concept of “Responsible Protection” (RP) offers a valuable contribution to the normative debate over R2P's third pillar following the controversy over military intervention in Libya. While RP draws heavily on previous proposals including the 2001 ICISS report and Brazil's “Responsibility while Protecting” (RwP), by amalgamating and repackaging these earlier ideas in a more restrictive form the initiative represents a new and distinctive interpretation of R2P. However, some aspects of RP are framed too narrowly to provide workable guidelines for determining the permissibility of military intervention for humanitarian purposes, and should be clarified and refined. Nevertheless, the Chinese proposal remains significant because it offers important insights into Beijing's current stance on R2P. More broadly, China's RP and Brazil's RwP initiatives illustrate the growing willingness of rising, non-Western powers to assert their own normative preferences on sovereignty, intervention, and global governance.

The separate legal personality of ASEAN, an international organization, is a matter of some significance. ASEAN is capable of separate action and can carry rights and obligations on the international plane, as a distinct entity from its Member States. In this Journal, Chen Zhida advances the proposition that ASEAN is entitled to conclude treaties on behalf of its Member States, a practice which, it is argued, should be valid at international law. This paper responds by drawing attention to the difficulties with this argument on technical and conceptual grounds. For technical reasons, it is important to make a meaningful distinction in the ASEAN practice of concluding instruments such as Memoranda of Understandings, which can be distinguished from treaties. At a conceptual level, the treaty practice of ASEAN as a separate legal person must be based on what was consented to by Member States in the ASEAN Charter, a constituent instrument.

This paper analyzes one of the key factors for understanding the region of Central Asia: its distinctive relationship to water resources and how states in the region co-operate—or should do so—in order to achieve better management of this valuable resource. Section I introduces the general legal context and, after the presentation of factual data, examines the management of water resources in the region from the viewpoint of the obligation of co-operation established under general international law, including the realization of the right of access to water and sanitation by all citizens. Subsequently, we analyze how and to what extent current international co-operation tools might contribute to solving existing challenges. To this end, we explore both co-operation in the generation and distribution of hydroelectric power in the region, and regional co-operation in the management, conservation, and sustainable development of the inland fisheries of Central Asia.

The question whether humanitarian intervention may ever be lawfully carried out unilaterally outside the scope of Chapter VII of the UN Charter has captured the interest of many for years. Faced with legal formalist arguments under the UN Charter, those otherwise favouring the idea of humanitarian intervention often retreat into an apologist stance by conceding too quickly the lack of cogent legal justifications therefor, preferring instead to rely on moral and ethical reasoning. The doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, while seemingly promising when first mooted in 2001, has since effectively been rendered obsolete as a justification for unilateral humanitarian intervention following the UN World Summit in 2005. By examining the role that equity plays in Article 38(1)(c) of the ICJ Statute, this paper advances the view that an aequitas ad bellum exists in international law that, under certain strict conditions, enables unilateral humanitarian intervention to be lawfully carried out.

Indicators are an important but often underrated means of international governance, with the power to regulate the thinking and conduct of international actors. This power should not go unregulated or unsupervised. Hence, this paper seeks to analyze ASEAN indicators from the viewpoint of global administrative law, and to consider the ways in which ASEAN indicators may possess regulatory characteristics. The paper reflects on the need to ensure that ASEAN indicators are generated in a way that is sufficiently transparent and accountable, and that allows participation from their targets, so that such indicators may be used constructively within ASEAN.

This paper analyzes the application of rights-based approaches to disaster displacement in the Asia-Pacific region in order to assess whether the current framework is sufficient to protect the rights of internally displaced persons. It identifies that disaster-induced displacement is increasingly prevalent in the region and that economic and social conditions in many countries mean that the impact of displacement is often prolonged and more severe. The paper identifies the relevant human rights principles which apply in the context of disaster-induced displacement and examines their implementation in a number of soft-law instruments. While it identifies shortcomings in implementation and enforcement, the paper concludes that a rights-based approach could be enhanced by greater engagement with existing human rights treaties and greater implementation of soft-law principles, and that no new instrument is required.

This paper looks at the Judgment handed down by the International Court of Justice in November 2013 on the interpretation of its 1962 Judgment in the Temple of Preah Vihear case between Cambodia and Thailand. The primary objective of this paper is to disclose the imperfect account of states’ obligations provided for by the Court. In effect, the ICJ emphasized that Cambodia and Thailand must co-operate pursuant to the World Heritage Convention in the protection of the Temple as a world heritage site of outstanding universal value. Accordingly, the Court obscured the fact that the regime for the protection of cultural heritage in wartime was applicable in this case. This paper first examines the ICJ’s narrow approach and its implications. Next, it brings the focus back into a larger context by analyzing the impact of the ICJ’s jurisprudence on the development of international cultural heritage law.