MyUNHCR Cambodia - Cambodia

Cambodia, Viet Nam and UNHCR have agreed to further cooperate on finding solutions for Montagnards leaving Viet Nam’s Central Highlands and crossing into Cambodia. Monitoring of returnees by the UN refugee agency will continue, while the voluntary repatriation process and joint missions by UNHCR and the Cambodian authorities to retrieve Montagnard asylum seekers will be sped up.


What is OHCHR?

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the principal United Nations agency responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights. It is part of the Secretariat of the United Nations, an inter-governmental organization made up of 193 Member States. OHCHR’s headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. It maintains an office at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, country and regional offices, and human rights advisers assigned to United Nations Country Teams. It also manages United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world. 


What is the history of the OHCHR Cambodia Country Office?

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has been operating in Cambodia since October 1993. The 1991 Paris Peace Accords had given the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) a mandate to monitor the human rights situation during the transitional period (1991-1993). Once the work of UNTAC was concluded, the Accords mandated the United Nations to continue its human rights work in the country. The Office’s programme developed from this mandate. The presence and mandate of the Office is governed by a biannual resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council, as well as a bilateral agreement with the Royal Government. The Office is mandated to work closely with the Government, civil society organizations and interested Member States to support the Government’s obligations under international human rights law.