September 13, 2012
Human Rights Watch
Abstract:
Despite decades of experience with hosting millions of refugees, Thailand’s refugee
policies remain fragmented, unpredictable, inadequate and ad hoc, leaving refugees
unnecessarily vulnerable to arbitrary and abusive treatment. Thailand is not a party to the
1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Refugee Convention) or its 1967
Protocol. It has no refugee law or formalized asylum procedures. The lack of a legal
framework leaves refugees and asylum seekers in a precarious state, making their stay in
Thailand uncertain and their status unclear.
Burmese refugees in Thailand face a stark choice: they can stay in one of the refugee
camps along the border with Burma and be relatively protected from arrest and summary
removal to Burma but without freedom to move or work. Or, they can live and work outside
the camps, but typically without recognized legal status of any kind, leaving them at risk of
arrest and deportation. It is a choice refugees should not be compelled to make. Many of
those who decide to live in the camps do so without being formally registered or
recognized. And many of those living outside the camps find the process of applying for
and gaining migrant worker status to be prohibitively expensive and out of reach, leaving
them vulnerable to exploitation, arrest, and deportation....
July 24, 2012
Human Rights Watch
Abstract:
More than 350,000 people identified as drug users are held in compulsory drug "treatment" centers in China and Southeast Asia. Detainees are held without due process for periods of months or years and may be subjected to physical and sexual abuse, torture, and forced labor. International donors and UN agencies have supported and funded drug detention centers, while centers have systematically denied detainees access to evidence-based drug dependency treatment and HIV prevention services. "Torture in the Name of Treatment," summarizes Human Rights Watch’s findings over five years of research in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Lao PDR....
February 28, 2012
Stimson Center
Abstract:
Existing interstate relationships, evolving demographic trends, economic growth, climate
change, and human efforts to manage fresh water availability will determine the quantity and
quality of available water supplies in the coming decades. The interplay of these factors make
water availability both a human security and national security issue.
This report, which resulted from a January 29 meeting, considers specific in-country cases, including Yemen and Afghanistan, and transboundary cases including the river basins of the Mekong, Ganges, Mahakali, and Indus rivers. Over the course of the day, the assembled experts examined environmental, institutional, and socio-economic trends affecting surface and groundwater supplies in selected regions and assessed dynamics that could contribute to political conflict, perturb regional power relations, or pose humanitarian concerns warranting external engagement. This report also considers criteria for identifying basins where future tensions or instabilities could emerge and assesses the roles that technological innovations, market mechanisms, river basin institutions, and other policy approaches play in the cooperative management of shared water resources....
September 26, 2011
Freedom House
Abstract:
Freedom House has prepared this special
report entitled Worst of the Worst: The
World’s Most Repressive Societies, as a
companion to its annual survey on the state of
global political rights and civil liberties,
Freedom in the World. The special report
provides summary country reports, tables, and
graphical information on the countries that
receive the lowest combined ratings for
political rights and civil liberties in Freedom
in the World, and whose citizens endure
systematic and pervasive human rights
violations.
The
report serves a reminder that over 1.6 billion
people—more than 24 percent of the world’s
population—suffer every day from the basic
indignities of not being able to express their
thoughts and opinions, of not having a say in
who governs them and how the wealth of
their land and labor is spent, and of being
unable to obtain justice for crimes perpetrated
against them. Hundreds of thousands
of human beings in these countries languish
every day in prisons or labor camps—
generally in subhuman conditions and subject
to physical or mental abuse—purely for their
political or religious beliefs. This report seeks
to highlight their plight and serves as a call to
the world’s governments, policymakers,
human rights organizations, and democracy
advocates to speak out and use whatever
resources they can bring to bear to improve respect for the most basic human rights in
these countries....
April 7, 2011
Institute for Security and Development Policy
Abstract:
The Mekong River – Southeast Asia’s largest river – runs from the Tibetan Plateau and through China’s
Yunnan province. This part of the river is heavily dammed. South of China, as it goes through Burma,
Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, has been spared. That might soon be changing as Laos, backed by Thailand,
is set to start the construction of the 1260 megawatt Xayaburi hydroelectric plant. Vietnam opposes
this plan and claims that the future of the river, and the communities along it, will be threatened. National
interests are clearly pitted against each other. The split regarding the future of the Mekong River threatens
to damage the relations between Laos and Vietnam and increase regional insecurity....
Laos 
