On 5 May 2015, Professor Surya Subedi OBE delivered a speech at the University of Leeds on his time as UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Cambodia from 2009 to 2015. Professor Subedi is Vice-President of the ILA Nepalese Branch and Member of the ILA British Branch.
The lecture is titled ‘Life as a UN Special Rapporteur’ and the ILA Reporter is proud to make available a copy to its readers. To access the speech, please click here.
The life of a Special Rapporteur is described by Professor Subedi as that of ‘an international diplomat, a human rights activist, a human-rights law academic, and a government adviser – simultaneously’ (p. 38). The speech is an insightful and entertaining story of what it means to juggle these ‘hats’ at the same time.
Professor Subedi’s role took some interesting turns during his time in office. At one point, he became the de facto mediator between the Cambodian government and opposition during the political stalemate following disputed 2013 elections. At other times, he operated as a government critic and was very nearly declared persona non-grata by Cambodian authorities. Whilst such status is apparently something of a ‘badge of honour’ in the international human rights community, Professor Subedi says that he is happy enough with his OBE from Her Majesty the Queen of the UK.
Professor Subedi’s style as Special Rapporteur was characterised by robust critique layered in soft diplomatic language. Indeed his style earned him the dubious title of ‘old whisky in a new bottle’ from the Cambodian Prime Minister. In the Editors’ views, coming from the man the subject of the criticism, that’s a pretty good nip.