Report Identifies Serious International Law Violations in the Se San River Basin

By: 
Eric Rutkow, Cori Crider, Tyler Giannini, Harvard Law School
Date: 
Thursday, December 1, 2005

For the better part of a decade, the story of the Cambodian communities along the Se San River in Ratanakiri has been one of development gone wrong. Since construction of Vietnam’s US$1 billion Yali Falls Dam the Se San River’s ecosystems have not been the same and the food security of those communities that depend on the river has vanished. This report by the Clinical Advocacy Project of Harvard’s Law School’s Human Rights Program, published by the NGO Forum on Cambodia, documents serious violations of international law caused by Vietnam’s construction of dams in the Se San watershed and puts forward a framework, rooted in Vietnam and Cambodia’s international legal obligations under human rights and environmental law.