Executive Summary

As of its 17th Anniversary after being localized and registered with Ministry of Interior (MOI) since 21 December 2001, CLEC has produced marveleous achievements contributing to a better space of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Even though Year 2017 brought a hardship to CLEC in terms of internal differences leading to a major lack of funding support from certain donors and staff leaving from CLEC, CLEC is still able to produce notable results as follows:

1. Implemented its program strategies on legal empowerment to build the capacity of the target communities and the provision of legal aid such as legal consultation, legal representation and legal defense in coping with approximate 6,606 families 21 land-related cases of community-clients within 11 provinces and municipalities, 23 districts, 31 communes and 74 villages/communities with 11.88% (785 families) from 6 ethnic minorities – 5.78% of Tampuon ethnic indigenous minority, 4.74% of Charay ethnic indigenous minority, 1.39% of Phnong ethnic indigenous minority, 0.75% of Cham ethnic minority, and 0.21% of Steang ethnic indigenous minority, with approximate 416,651.61 hectares of total land claims;
2. With some of 233 prominent community-based paralegals (CBPL) including 26.18% women, CLEC mobilized their support for their community cases by retaining most of their land and natural resources for their daily livelihoods during the period of the unsolved disputes. Initial alternative dispute resolution (ADR) or constructive dialogue with parties in the disputes has been sought and successfully organized with an involvement of relevant government authorities and other stakeholders;
3. Gradually vested in traditionally solving cases/disputes out of court, CLEC paralegals, local councils, governmental authorities and non-governmental organizations have been able to boost up solution for communty issues and land-related disputes via mediation and conciliation processes.
4. The CLEC transformative ADR approach, namely “Mobile Mediation – Peace-Table” is still relevant and suitable to solve some of the very high impact cases such as Union Development Group (UDG) case in Koh Kong and sugarcane industry cases in Koh Kong and Preah Vihear by CLEC seeking close cooperation with focal intermediary and potential donor like AFSC and Oxfam for an initial ADR proposal;
5. Compiled and documented the well-founded study research, case studies and best practices from land-related cases, as done in the UDG case and the current preparation for Sugarcane cases in Preah Vihear. It is the CLEC approach to be a long-run partner of all actors with the hope of bringing social harmony to Cambodian society;
6. Even so, CLEC still needs some potential partners and donors like NGOF, DCA and OHCHR and many others to be able to pursue replicating ADR to land-related disputes at all levels;
7. Compiled and documented approximate 70 criminal cases affected from 5 land-related disputes within 5 provinces, the focal rights actor such as OHCHR is looking for CLEC to pursue minimizing such criminal effect against community activism. This good practice was made with good outcomes in the Chikreng (Siem Reap) case in 2009-2010 where 12 Chikreng-community members were given suspended sentences upon serious and many criminal offences that could be added up to life imprisonment; and
8. Solemnly achieved with technical dialogue approach at national level regarding the sugarcane issues and cases during late 2017, CLEC could be able to predict its liaision for wider local councils’ accountability with ground demands of land and natural resouces’ tenure secturity for sustainable livelihoods in the next period.