South East Asian Human Rights Commissions call for reforms to regulate agribusiness

Concluding a three day meeting in Phnom Penh convened by the Indonesian Human Rights Commission, with the support of Forest Peoples Programme, SawitWatch and the Community Legal Education Center of Cambodia, South East Asian Human Rights Commissions called for action to protect communities and indigenous peoples from the expansion of agribusiness. The meeting was a follow up to the Bali Declaration on Human Rights and Agribusiness. Their appeal is targetted at national governments to reform their laws so they protect human rights and require businesses to uphold human rights standards. They also called on the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights to remedy the problems resulting from the proliferation of transboundary agribusiness investments and operations in the region. They appealed to the Cambodian Government to resolve the long standing land conflict in Koh Kong Province between a Thai-Taiwanese sugar plantation company and local people and to the European Union and the sugar importers Tate and Lyle and the American Sugar Refining Company to investigate the continuing human rights violations.

Click here to read the Statement of the Phnom Penh Workshop on Human Rights and Agribusiness in Southeast Asia: Making the Bali Declaration Effective