Thailand and the Responsibility to Protect

The paper reviews Thailand's position on RtoP through in-depth interviews with those currently working most closely with RtoP-related issues within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Human Rights Commission, the Armed Forces and NGOs. The interview results reveal that Thailand's position on RtoP is mixed. While the country is willing to support the international community implementing RtoP through UN humanitarian operations, it is inclined not to define any of its own internal security problems as an RtoP-type situation. The paper highlights the challenges posed by separatist insurgents in Southern Thailand, and the recent violent political confrontation during April and May 2010, two internal security cases viewed by some observers as RtoP-type situations. But from Thailand's perspectives, almost all those interviewed insist that these situations are matters of internal security affairs. In addition, the preventive dimension of RtoP has not received much attention and has rather been challenged as to how such measures for the prevention of RtoP crimes differ from those more broadly undertaken to achieve the same goals as RtoP, but are not being called as such. Therefore, given the present context, Thailand's position on RtoP will unlikely change for the better if RtoP continues to be advocated as a concept in its current state.