Page 73 - Rights beautiful : collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik

Rights Beautiful Collection of Professor Saneh Chamarik

The Role of National Human

Rights Commission, Thailand *

- Saneh Chamarik -

Preliminary remarks
On behalf of the Thai NHRC, let me first join in expressing our
gratitude for the FNS’ continuing efforts in promoting human rights
dialogues, and for giving us the opportunity to take part in this particular
inter-regional forum. As a new comer with somewhat different background
and incidence of human rights problems, one indeed expects in this process
of consultation not only to learn, but also to be heard. Out of this process
of mutual learning, a concrete programme of cooperation and coordination
could then be arrived at for the common purpose of human rights protection
and promotion.
In discussing the role of national human rights commissions, it is
extremely important to bear in mind three basic points of common
understanding. These are inter-related. First is the question of the nature
and reality of human rights itself. Notwithstanding universality as a matter
of principle, human rights are concerned with the moral claims or ideas and
practices created by people to legitimate particular interests in particular
historical, social, and economic circumstances. To put it strictly on empirical
ground, human rights constitute the straightforward result of people’s
aspirations and struggles, and hardly characteristic of any specific culture

* Presented at the Conference on National and Regional Systems for the Promotion and
Protection of Human Rights, organized by the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, Strasbourg,
France, October 7-11, 2002.

OFFICE OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION OF THAILAND 67