About the event:
Southeast Asia sits at the nexus between great power rivalry, China, expanding its influence southward, and the United States, that sees itself as a resident power in the region, with a web of alliance ties and economic interests. This is coupled with the emergence of new technologies whose supply chains need access to critical mineral and rare earth deposits, which are abundant in the region, where autocracy and complex domestic political legitimacy contests are unfolding. These dynamics affect the peoples of Southeast Asia and their fundamental freedoms and basic human rights. The situation is exacerbated by the rise of transnational repression, as states reach across borders to surveil, harass and silence dissidents and exiles.
This panel, featuring Sriprapha Petcharamesree, a former Thai representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and a lecturer in law at Chulalongkorn University, and Fuadi Pitsuwan, a lecturer in international relations at Thammasat University in Thailand, will discuss these dynamics and their impact on the future of human rights in Southeast Asia.
Sign up now
Due to limited space, please register before September 4:
About the speakers:
Dr. Sriprapha Petcharamesree is currently affiliated with the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. She was previously a senior lecturer at the Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University. Her first formal contact with human rights was when she served UNHCR during the Indochinese refugee crisis in 1977. She was also employed as a social worker at UNICEF's Emergency Operations for Cambodian Refugees between 1979-1981 before joining the Thai government and then academia. She joined UNHCR again as a senior researcher between 2017-2022.
Her recent research focuses, among others, on issues of forced migration; statelessness; academic freedom; ASEAN studies; and human rights in international relations. As a founding member of the Prorights Foundation and has been serving as the Co-Chair of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, the only human rights NGO listed in the ASEAN Charter, she has been actively engaging with CSOs in the region and beyond. From 2009-2012, she was appointed the first Representative of Thailand to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).
Dr. Fuadi Pitsuwan is a Lecturer in International Relations at the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University. His teaching and research interests include international security, great power politics, international organizations, ASEAN, as well as human rights and democracy. He is also President of the Surin Pitsuwan Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on education, conflict resolution, and human security in ASEAN, and serves as an advisor to the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Thai Parliament. He earned his DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, his MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and his Bachelor from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. He was also a fellow at Harvard's Asia Center and a fellow at the School of Public Policy at Chiang Mai University.