Cambodia’s First Annotated Constitution

Rule of Law Cambodia
(from left to right): Rolando Garcia Miron (SLS JSD Candidate), Lily Smith (SLS 3L), Chloe Laskar (Destination Justice), Sophia Aspesi Areias (Transparency International Cambodia), Rodolphe Prom (Destination Justice), and Laurent Mesmann (Royal University of Law and Economics) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia during the presentation of the English version of the “Annotated Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia” last September.

STANFORD LAW SCHOOL’S CAMBODIA LAW AND POLICY INITIATIVE is reporting a big success with the recent publication of the first Annotated Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia. The initiative was launched in 2015 as a Rule of Law Program project. Its members have been collaborating with Destination Justice, a nongovernmental organization in Cambodia, to produce an annotated constitution and assist the English Language Based Bachelor of Law Program at the Royal University of Law and Economics with academic accreditation.

“It is fantastic to see the final product on paper after all the hours of work,” says Rolando Garcia Miron, a JSD candidate who recently returned from Phnom Penh where he and several students working on the project participated in the launch of the English version of the book. While there, they also met with officials from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, Transparency International, the Handa Center, the European Union, and The Asia Foundation.

Initiative students reported that they received positive feedback from faculty and staff at local universities such as the Royal University of Law and Economics and the National University of Management. The Constitutional Council, the Ministry of Justice, and the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia have also expressed interest in the book.

“It is exciting to know that this book will soon be used by legal practitioners all over Cambodia to help increase people’s knowledge of the constitution and advance its interpretation,” adds Lily McNamara Smith, JD ’18, who along with Donna Kim, JD ’18, and Yoo Min Won, a JSD candidate, has also been working on the project. The team is currently finalizing the translation of the Annotated Constitution to Khmer.