Geneva — On the morning of 3 October 2025, during the 60th session of the Human Rights Council, His Excellency Ambassador Dara In, Permanent Representative of Cambodia to the United Nations in Geneva, delivered Cambodia’s statement in the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Cambodia (the statement enclosed).

In his reply intervention, the Ambassador affirmed that while Cambodia welcomes the Rapporteur’s first call to uphold the ceasefire, peace cannot rest on words alone while forced displacement, encircled villages, property seizures, forced evictions and the plight of captured soldiers remain unresolved.

To depict Cambodia as trapped between a “quandary” and a “quagmire” is a distortion. Cambodia is not paralysed; it is advancing—rising from war to rebuild institutions of peace and law. Elections were free, civil society vibrant, and progress undeniable.

Yet the report, he noted, is marred by selectivity and imbalance, focusing narrowly on civic and political claims while scarcely acknowledging Cambodia’s socio-economic achievements. Civil and political freedoms, he reminded, cannot endure where economic and social rights collapse. He therefore urged the Special Rapporteur to uphold the Code of Conduct with impartiality and balance.

The Ambassador further called on the Human Rights Council to engage with fairness: recognising achievements as well as challenges, resisting politicisation and double standards and reaffirming cooperation grounded in mutual respect. Cambodia, he underlined, remains steadfast in its commitment—to peace as the foundation of rights, to development as the path to dignity and to the full enjoyment of all human rights for all our people.

During the session, several delegations spoke overwhelmingly in favour of Cambodia’s achievements, progress and efforts in advancing the promotion and protection of human rights for all.

During the session, several delegations spoke overwhelmingly in favour of Cambodia’s achievements, progress and efforts in advancing the promotion and protection of human rights for all.