CAMBODIAN HUMAN RIGHTS AND
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (ADHOC)
Chan Krisna Sawada
Head of Women’s and Children’s Rights Program
BACKGROUND OF THE ORGANIZATION:
Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association
(ADHOC) was founded by a group of political prisoners in
December 1991 after the signing of the Paris Peace
Agreements on October 23, 1991. ADHOC is an
independent, non-partisan, non-profit, non-governmental
organization.
ADHOC’S VISION AND GOALS:
Vision
A society that respects human rights and law.
Goals
o
o
To strengthen the capacity of ordinary citizens to
claim their rights and to assist victims of human
rights abuses in their quest for justice.
To help ordinary citizens to assert their human rights
fully by lobbying and advocating for improvement
and enhancement of laws, institutions and law
enforcement
ADHOC’S ACTIVITIES
In pursuit of these goals, ADHOC has structured around
two core programs: Monitoring and Women’s and
Children’s Rights and engaged in the following types of
activities:
o Counselling and legal aid, provided chiefly by the 22
provincial offices, occasionally supported by ADHOC’s
central office and external allies (e.g. fellow human rights
organisations who participate in joint investigations in
larger cases, or legal aid groups who provide pro bono
lawyers)
o Sensitisation and training by ADHOC staff to “ordinary”
people and duty-bearers (e.g. local government officials)
on human rights and related issues
ADHOC’S ACTIVITIES
• Facilitating the emergence of grassroots groups (called
“communities” or “grassroots networks”) around specific
cases, usually involving land and natural resources issues
• Investigating human rights violations throughout the
country, recording them in monthly provincial reports to
Phnom Penh and a database, and intervening as
appropriate
• Human rights advocacy using a range of approaches,
from low-profile lobby and persuasion with duty-bearers
(e.g. local officials) to “naming and shaming” in the media
ADHOC’S ACTIVITIES
● Campaigning, as a leading member of the
Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC)
and issue-based national networks, on national
legislation and institutional reforms
HOW ADHOC & TISCO INTERRELATED?
ADHOC is involved in and
is good at:
• Providing legal aid to beneficiaries
• Analyzing practices of dispute
resolution and developing
work-methods to set up a state
of the art dispute resolution service
that will provide fair and effective
outcomes to clients
• Implement a project in which these
work methods will be used and
tested with outreach in the rural
areas through field offices
• Organizing workshops and learning
events for ADHOC staffs and
network members
TISCO is involved in and is
good at:
• Identifying international best
practices in justice services
• Evaluating best practices with the
help of academic lecture
• Making transparent practices that
work to solve conflicts
• Linking stakeholders in improving
access to justice across borders
ADHOC AND TISCO PARTNERSHIP
• To develop state of the art dispute resolution
techniques and a strong evidence base about
effective practices
• To test and apply the knowledge in a microjustice facilitator/community dispute resolution
project that ADHOC will set up in the coming time
OBJECTIVES OF ADR PROJECT
● To build ADHOC’s staffs and community
representatives’ capacities in ADR
● To create facilitating tools for ADR process in
Cambodia
● To share these tools within the micro justice
workplace and to pool resources at the international
level
ADR PROJECT ACTIVITIES
• Pre-meeting with TISCO to get familiar
with the five steps: (1) Meet (2)Talk (3)
Share (4) Decide (5) Stabilize
• Designing Tools
• Tool Testing
• Finalizing and sharing tools
ADR PROJECT OUTPUTS
Through phase 1 and phase 2 testing period, ADHOC
had successfully mediated 10 DV cases out 16 total
testing cases (10 DV cases; 3 land conflict cases; 2
child support cases; and a labor conflict case)
Good Practices:
● ADHOC’s mediators have good reputation in the
communities to convince unwilling party to the
dispute to engage in mediation
● ADR process is time and cost effectives and
unbiased
ADR PROJECT OUTPUTS
● Flexibility of the mediators on the use of the tools
● ADHOC had successfully mediated 10 DV cases
without using the fourth party to the mediation
● Stabilizing and formalizing the agreement made
through the mediation with the assistance of the local
authorities and all the relevant parties
● Using the person with higher authority in the
communities to convince the unwilling party to engage
in the mediation but not to decide for any party to the
dispute
CHALLENGES:
• Sustainability of the project (human and financial
resources)
• Lack of cooperation among NGOs and state institutions
working on ADR
• Remain neutral when forming a relationship with the
unwilling party to persuade him/her to engage in the
mediation can be difficult
• If an invitation letter is too formal it can intensify the
dispute
• It can furthermore be difficult to convince the parties that
a decision that is agreed upon by both parties is in fact
better than a decision taken solely by the arbitrator
Thank you!