Government to submit a revised human rights report by year's end

The Phnom Penh Post
http://www.phnompenhpost.com

Written by Sam Rith
Tuesday, 19 May 2009

CAMBODIA'S senior human rights officer said Monday the government plans to resubmit its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) to the UN Human Rights Council by December.

Om Yentieng, who chairs the Cambodian Human Rights Committee, said the updated report - initially submitted in September last year - would be more specific than the original.

The UPR is submitted every four years, and September's report was the Kingdom's first submission.

"We will still encounter the same difficulties of needing to work with the various ministries and departments to collate statistics relating to demography, development, new laws and regulations," Om Yentieng said.

The UPR is not the same as the much-maligned report the government submitted earlier this month - 15 years behind schedule - to the UN office in Geneva that examines the measures taken to comply with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

UK funds workshop
Om Yentieng said the revised UPR would benefit from lessons learned by other countries with experience in writing such reports, adding that the United Kingdom is funding a three-day workshop in Phnom Penh that started on Monday.

Andrew Mace, the British ambassador to Cambodia, said a key aim of the workshop was to share the UK's experience gained when drafting its submission and to "lighten that workload" for Cambodia.

"My second aim [is] to highlight how the UPR can be a positive process. It is an examination by a country's peers," he said, which helped member states meet the obligations they had signed up to.

Christophe Peschoux, representative of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Phnom Penh, said the review provided an opportunity to assess human rights compliance.

"I would like to encourage the government to ensure that the process of drawing up the state report will be genuine, self-critical where necessary, and thorough," he said.