"Cambodia: World Heritage Committee must ensure UNESCO decision addresses Angkor forced evictions", 19 July 2024

Member states at … UNESCO World Heritage Committee must address human rights violations carried out by Cambodian authorities affecting thousands of families at the Angkor historical site, Amnesty International said.

A UNESCO World Heritage Centre draft decision on the site was issued ahead of the UN agency’s 46th World Heritage Committee session, which takes place in New Delhi, India,…

An Amnesty International report published … revealed that Cambodian authorities, citing the need to protect the roughly thousand-year-old site from damage that could imperil Angkor’s UNESCO World Heritage status, had engaged in forced evictions on a massive scale and in a gross violation of international human rights law.

“Member states at the World Heritage Committee session must unequivocally condemn the human rights violations being committed by the Cambodian government at Angkor,” said Kate Schuetze, Amnesty International’s Acting Deputy Regional Director for Research.

“They must also follow up on the UNESCO draft decision with a view to preventing further violations and ensuring that victims of forced evictions can access their right to effective remedy.”

UNESCO’s draft decision expresses concern about “possible forced population displacements” and requests Cambodia to invite a joint Reactive Monitoring Mission to Angkor to assess the state of conservation and “the conditions of the relocated communities”.

The draft decision also calls on Cambodia to ensure that it communicates the ongoing relocation programme to local communities by outlining, among other issues, “its commitment to ensuring that the conditions of relocated populations comply in all respects” with human rights.

However, the decision falls short of calling on Cambodia to make an explicit commitment not to engage in forced evictions in Angkor…