A violent land grab on a Cambodian Sugar Plantation.

In the mid-2000s in southwestern Cambodia, a violent land grab by sugar companies pushed 500 families off of their land, violating their rights to life, livelihoods and self-determination. In response, ERI and Cambodian CSO Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC) worked with the affected communities in Koh Kong to bring a landmark case to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT). While companies from the U.K., the U.S. and Cambodia are also responsible for crimes in Koh Kong, the NHRCT case alleged that Thai corporation Khon Kaen Sugar Ltd. violated both Cambodian and international law. This was the first transboundary case accepted by the NHRCT.