Opium Production in the Golden Triangle Continues at High Levels, Threatening Regional Integration

Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar and Lao PDR rose to 63,800 hectares (ha) in 2014 compared to 61,200 ha in 2013, increasing for the eighth consecutive year and nearly tripling the amount harvested in 2006, according to the Southeast Asia Opium Survey 2014 – Lao PDR, Myanmar. […]

Myanmar’s Rosewood Crisis

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Extremely rapid growth in Chinese imports of ‘redwood’, ‘rosewoods’ or ‘Hongmu’ timbers from Myanmar in the past two years is directly driving increased illegal and unsustainable logging, posing a real threat to governance, the rule of law and the viability Myanmar’s dwindling forests.

EIA research shows that, based on current trends, the two most targeted Hongmu species in Myanmar – tamalan and padauk – could be logged to commercial extinction in as little as three years.

With financial rewards for illegal loggers and timber smugglers dwarfing traditional incomes, and evidence of corruption facilitating illegal business, Myanmar’s domestic controls will be unable to effectively stem illegal trade.

Myanmar urgently needs to engender legal reciprocity from strategic timber trade partners, particularly China, to ensure Myanmar’s forestry and trade laws are respected along its land border […]

ASEAN Community will Be a Failure without Regional Rights Protections: ASEAN MPs Call for Independence and Strengthened Mandate for Regional Human Rights Commission

BANGKOK — The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) has failed to bring any discernible improvement to or provide any protection for the basic rights of the people of Southeast Asia since its inception in 2009 and must be radically changed in ways that strengthen its independence and mandate if the ASEAN Community is to have any real meaning or impact, Southeast Asian lawmakers said today […]

Thailand: Fears of Crackdown Trigger Exodus

(New York) – The Thai military authorities should urgently improve human rights protections of migrant workers to end their mass flight from the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

Following the military coup on May 22, 2014, several hundred thousand registered and unregistered migrant workers from Cambodia, Burma, and Laos have fled the country in fear of a government crackdown and newly announced regulations. More than 200,000 Cambodian workers […]

Members of ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, ACT NOW Against Increasing Human Rights Violations in the Region!

The Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) calls on the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) to ACT NOW against increasing human rights violations in the region […]

Sombath Somphone One Year On: 62 NGOs Call for a New Investigation into his Enforced Disappearance

We, the undersigned 62 regional and international organizations, express outrage over the Lao Government’s ongoing failure to shed light on the enforced disappearance of prominent activist and civil society leader Sombath Somphone.

December 15, 2013 marks the one-year anniversary of Sombath’s disappearance […]

South-East Asia Opium Survey 2012: Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar

“The opium numbers continue to head in the wrong direction”, said Gary Lewis, UNODC Regional Representative for East Asia and the Pacific. “However, we have seen more progress on responding to the root causes of opium cultivation in the past year than we have in the past decade. The international community must now ask ‘how can we help?’, and provide resources towards a solution.”

Laos supports Burma proposal for Asean summit arrangements

Laos has supported Burma’s proposal to switch the scheduled hosting of the Asean Summit in 2014, with Laos to instead hold the regional summit in 2016 […]