In 2005, with major United Nations reforms, the UN Human Rights Council was set up. With the new body came a new monitoring mechanism of a more universal kind: the Universal Periodic Review. For once, the UN would have a way of covering every country consensually, with a gentler touch than that of many other human rights mechanisms.
The UPR is basically an interactive dialogue of a modulated kind between states, avoiding vocal naming-and-shaming. It is a peer review exercise whereby the country under review can pick and choose between recommendations submitted by other countries for improving human rights implementation — to accept or to decline them.
Thailand is now approaching the fourth cycle to review the country’s human rights record. The third review took place between 2021 and 2022, and the country accepted nearly 220 recommendations from other countries. A typical accepted recommendation was for the country to become a party to more human rights treaties. Importantly, since that time, the country has ratified the International Convention to Protect All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
The country is now a party to eight out of nine core international human rights treaties. The ninth treaty to which the country has not yet acceded is the International Convention on the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. The other eight are on civil/political rights, economic/social/cultural rights, women, children, persons with disabilities, racial discrimination, torture and most recently on enforced disappearance. However, the key test must be whether they are implemented effectively.
Long-standing hesitation has delayed accession to two fundamental labor conventions: ILO Conventions Number 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining. They have much to do with trade unions, and whether non-Thais, especially migrant workers, can set up or sit on the board of trade unions. The current situation does not open the door to access by nonnationals on this front. There has also been reticence to enable employees of state enterprises to strike. Internationally, the situation is now clearer concerning to what extent freedom of association includes the right to strike. The International Court of Justice advised in 2026 that ILO Convention Number 87, linked with freedom of association, implicitly includes the right to strike.
By contrast, at the third UPR, Thailand merely “noted” some 60 recommendations. In reality, the “noted” position is equivalent to or nearly equivalent to “nonacceptance.” It is not difficult to guess the recommendations that the country did not accept. They were and are the most intractable areas about which the authorities are careful. However, this cautionary approach should not obscure the adjustments needed to improve respect for human rights in relation to those “noted” recommendations.
What were the 60 “noted” recommendations, and has the situation improved since the third UPR? Many of the 60 recommendations pertain to these categories: the death penalty, refugee protection, lese majeste, national security laws restricting political freedoms and LGBTQ+-related issues. Other recommendations relate to the International Criminal Court, an invitation to ratify a number of other treaties, and an admixture of other issues. With regard to LGBTQ, the situation has improved with the passage of the law to recognize same-sex marriages, now over a year old. However, the country is still waiting for a law to recognize gender identity to enable transgender persons to change their identification documents.
Refugee protection has improved on some fronts, but deteriorated on other fronts. A welcome development is the new policy to allow some 80,000 long-staying refugees from Myanmar to work. However, care should be taken not to push persons who seek asylum here back to areas of danger. The principle of “non-refoulement” (no pushback) is also found in Thailand’s anti-torture law.
The death penalty issue is age-old. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Thailand is a party, there is only a niche for a country to have the death penalty in law: only for the “most serious crimes.” The Human Rights Committee, which monitors implementation of this treaty, has already advised that drug-related offenses do not constitute the most serious crimes, and the death penalty should be abolished accordingly. There has been little progress on this issue since the third UPR.
The all-embracing Narcotics Code now enables judges to have discretion not to impose the death penalty; this has reformed the previous “mandatory sentencing.” Courts can impose other sanctions, such as fines and imprisonment. However, the death penalty has not been abolished outright for drug-related crimes, and national law is still substandard when set against international law.
Regarding lese majeste and other laws impeding political freedoms, various UN human rights bodies have advised that the country review the situation. Major court cases have addressed the issue in Thailand, including in the Constitutional Court. In banning key political figures and a political party for including the question of reforming the monarchy as part of their electoral campaign, the court left open a small window for addressing the issue in the legislature. Intrinsically, much depends on political will and a positive signal to follow international standards, such as screening out the cases concerned.
With regard to other laws impeding the enjoyment of civil and political rights, a key challenge relates to the 2005 Emergency Decree with extensive powers conferred on uniformed authorities to detain a person for 30 days, without physical access to the courts to impugn the detention. Section 12 of the decree allows the authorities to detain persons outside the official prison system, a dangerous loophole preventing the detained person from accessing legal help from the first day of the detention and perhaps leading to enforced disappearance. The authorities should desist from applying the decree, with an eye to reform.
It can be surmised that many of the issues in the 60 “noted” recommendations will be raised again by several countries as peer review in the fourth UPR. Leadership and sound reasoning are thus essential to guide the country’s response to comply progressively with international standards.
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Vitit Muntarbhorn
Vitit Muntarbhorn is a professor emeritus of law at Chulalongkorn University. The views expressed here are the writer's own. — Ed.
(Asia News Network)
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