Journal articles on the topic 'Law reform Thailand'

Abstract: In the context of globalization, it has become necessary to understand Thai labour issues, since Thailand has strong economic ties with advanced capitalist countries. The first Thai Labour Act was introduced in 1956. However, a series of coups d’état were then carried out in Thailand, resulting in the dissolution of trade unions and abolition of labour law, and in about 1960 the Authoritarian Political Regime for Development was established. Under this system trade unions were strictly regulated and terms and conditions of work were regulated by notifications of the Ministry of the Interior. However, as the Thai economy and democracy have developed, Thai labour law has also changed. The Labour Protection Act was introduced in 1998 through deliberations in Parliament. Moreover, deliberations on the amendment bill of Labour Relations Act started at the end of the 1990s and at the moment there is some controversy about the revision. If the draft bill is enacted, the characteristics of labour law under the developmental regime will to some extent be changed. It is therefore necessary to pay attention to the development of legal reforms.

AbstractThis article describes the founding and evolution of a “Thai-style” NGO dedicated to consumer protection. Through a description of the NGO and the career of its founder, the article brings to light features of the evolution of NGO-based advocacy in Thailand from the student uprising in 1973 to the present. The legacy of the 1973 October Generation of activists continues to influence development of NGOs but new emphasis on rights has emerged since the era of constitutional reform in the 1990s. Many NGOs now make use of litigation to attempt to achieve social change, but litigation, like other long-standing methods of advocacy involving reliance on networks that penetrate government itself, reflect the particular opportunities and pathways for change opened by Thailand’s politics.

<p><em>The Islamic Law on Family and Inheritance of 1946 was enforced only in the four southern provinces of Thailand consisting of Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and Setun Provinces. Islamic law applies only to the plaintiff, defendant or applicant who submits a request must be Muslim. The problem of law enforcement consists of the lack of clarity in the terms of membership of the Provincial Islamic Committee in the 1997 Law on the Administration of Islamic Organizations. The problem of setting the condition that requires Datok Qadi to be alone in deciding matters of Islamic law. Datok Qadi's decision is absolute and cannot be appealed. The problem of limiting the enforcement of Islamic law can only be enforced in court. Solving the problem in avoiding the legal inconsistency can be done by expanding the enforcement of family and inheritance law outside the court. In addition, there is also a need for legal reform, both the Islamic Law on Family and Inheritance of 1946 and the 1997 Law on Administration of Islamic Organizations which are clearer.</em></p><p><em> </em></p>

<p>Thailand’s competition regime was substantially overhauled in 1999 in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis as part of a wide-ranging reform of economic regulation. The new law was recognisably pro-competition and had ambitions to enhance the competitive capacity of Thai industry so as to be better able to withstand the increased competitive pressures from international business that was obtaining greater access to the Thai economy as international trade regimes liberalised. This article seeks to place Thailand’s new competition regime within the context of international competition law developments, especially in relation to developing and transitional economies, analyse the structure and content of the new law and the institutions established to enforce the statute. The article then attempts to assess the success of the first five years of implementation of the new regime. The observed weak enforcement of the new law is explained in terms of the incapacity of the state to implement the law effectively that is compounded by the absence of political commitment by the current government to a pro-competition economic policy. This lack of political will is due to leading government ministers having chronic conflicts of interest, immature and fragile institutional structures and, at root, the absence of a ``functioning’’ democracy.</p>

Numerous and consecutive aircraft accidents combined with a consistent failure to meet international safety standards in Indonesia, namely from the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Aviation Safety Agency have proven a nightmare for the country’s aviation safety reputation. There is an urgent need for bureaucracy reform, harmonization of legislation, and especially ensuring legal enforcement, to bring Indonesian aviation safety back to world standards. The Indonesian Aviation Law of 2009 was enacted to reform the situation in Indonesia. The law has become the ground for drafting legal framework under decrees of the Minister of Transportation, which have allowed the government to perform follow-up actions such as establishing a single air navigation service provider and guaranteeing the independency of the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee. A comparison with Thailand is made to enrich the perspective. Finally, foreign aviation entities have a role to assist states, in this case Indonesia, in improving its aviation safety, considering the global nature of air travel.

AbstractTriggered by the sense of crisis, the Thai state and Thai Buddhism are renewing their traditional relationship kindled by the monarch-led reform over a century ago. Thai Buddhism is reviving its lost aura and hegemony while the political conservatives are looking for legitimacy and collective identity in a time of democratic regression. The result is the rise of the Buddhist-nationalistic movement, Buddhist-as-Thainess notion. The phenomenon has grown more mainstream in recent years. These extreme Buddhists pressure the government to adopt a new constitutional relationship that brings the two entities closer to a full establishment. They also target both religious minorities as well as non-mainstream Buddhists. The revival of Buddhist nationalism foretells rising tension as well as diminishing religious freedom.

This article argues for law reform in Thailand concerning the protection of health data, particularly laws involving the data’s disclosure to third parties. It has been found that several pieces of Thai legislation governing this area are conflicting, causing confusion and disquiet to Thai physicians. Recently, Parliament has enacted the Personal Data Protection Act 2019. The said GDPR-style Act should have clarified all already-existing confusion regarding the inconsistency of legislation, but it has further complicated the matter instead. Doctors cannot disclose patients’ health data to third parties, even to protect others or public interests. Court cases from other jurisdictions show that courts are willing to impose on physicians the duty to disclose patients’ health data to third parties under certain circumstances, which makes the issue more significant to the Thai legal and medical communities. The article provides proposals to rectify the issue by amending relevant statutes and calling for professional guidance on this area which should be addressed by pertinent legislation. The relevant professional guidelines alongside the amended legislation will serve the interests of medical professionals, patients, and society at large.

The #MeToo movement, from its creation by activist Tarana Burke back in 2006 to its explosion on social media during the 2017 Harvey Weinstein sexual assault allegations, has continuously propagated images of gendered resistance from around the globe. In South Korea, Poland, Mexico, Bangladesh, and more, large numbers of women protest a variety of gendered topics: from unjust rulings in cases of domestic violence, to the lack of reproductive rights, to femicide, to inaction by law enforcement on cases of stalking, harassment, or sexual assault, and more. These images clearly demonstrate that public resistance is dominated by women, even in societies that are seen to traditionally subjugate women—though this is not new, and women have always been involved in resistance even when there was no way to document their participation. However, in countries where conservative institutions, public opinion, and government policy that contribute to gender inequality are paired with punitive action for opposition, women face a higher risk of being punished, ostracized, or brutalized for their resistance. In Thailand, a military state with perhaps the strictest lèse majesté laws in the world, activists are frequently fined, imprisoned, kept under surveillance, disappeared, or forced to flee. Despite this, Thailand experiences frequent surges of public resistance, dominated by youth and overwhelmingly by women. Since February 2020, a large portion of the Thai population, consisting primarily of students, has taken to public demonstrations demanding a fair democracy and constitutional reform, joined together in exasperation over an uncertain future, a crippling economy, an untouchable elite, and a rigged election. In this now years-long movement, fueled by global support and sophisticated protest tactics learned from watching Hong Kong, we observe the inclusion of gendered protest topics and demands by Thai women and girls. This paper demonstrates how Thai women utilize the movement to demand progress in gendered areas by examining examples taken throughout the 2020 pro-democracy protest movement, with the overall objective of contributing to understanding the relationship between public resistance and feminism.

In 2018, news of a 41-year-old Malay man’s marriage to a Thai girl of 11 as his third wife broke out in the Malaysian media, catalysing nationwide concerns on the state of affairs of child marriage in Malaysia. This article analyses the news reports on this child marriage scandal and draws on my own long-term ethnographic fieldwork studying marriage and intimacy in the state of Kelantan to examine the ensuing public and religious debates concerning the amendment of Malaysia’s Islamic family law enactments. I demonstrate that state- and federal-level efforts at curbing child marriage have failed largely due to the lack of consensus amongst the religious and political elite, as well as members of the Muslim community, on what the purpose of marriage is, who – and whose interests – it is meant to protect, and what measures should be implemented to prevent its abuse. Furthermore, child marriage in Malaysia has been ideologically sustained by a rhetoric of ‘masculinist protectionism’ in which men justify their marriage to young girls as an act of care and benevolence to mask a reality of coercion and violence. However, legal reform on child marriage will not only be ineffectual but also inadequate if it is not enforced in tandem with other initiatives such as seeking poverty eradication in rural regions; looking at the feasibility of contracting eloped marriages in Southern Thailand; and carefully reconsidering Malay adat and Islamic norms promoting young and early marriage as alternatives to prolonged periods of courtship.

Abstract Thailand is under consideration whether to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) along with four other ASEAN member states namely Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Moreover, the negotiation of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU), despite its halt in 2013, is expected to resume. This article aims to study the challenges regarding the labour provisions which form part of new generation FTAs to which Thailand may become a party. It will focus on the labour provisions in the CPTPP and the EU FTA model and examine the eventual impact on Thai labour law as well as suggest legal reforms in case Thailand decides to accede to the CPTPP and/or to conclude an FTA with the EU.

Throughout Thai history there have been religious ascetics credited with the ability of precognition (mii yaan) as a result of accumulated virtues and meditation abilities. One such religious figure, perhaps the most widely acknowledged “saint” in modern times, was Phra Ajaan Man Phuurithatto (1870–1949). Of particular interest to this paper is the recorded prediction made by this ascetic monk shortly before his death, documented by a former disciple Phra Aajaan Wiriyang, that there would be a proliferation of self-proclaimed meditation masters and pupils and fragmentation into urban-based “cults” or religious movements (yaek pen kok pen lao).

Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between leadership and the party’s image and voters’ satisfaction and voters’ loyalty in the regional election of the North Konawe District, Indonesia. Design/methodology/approach The study design is quantitative methods (Creswell, 2010). It is an explanatory research, investigating the relationship between variables (Kothari, 2004). The study population was the voters who participated in the 2015 regional head election of North Konawe. The population in this study was 37,429 people spread over 12 districts and 135 villages, and the sample size of this study was 276 respondents, based on sample size formulation in (Bungin, 2008). The method used to analyze the data in this study is generalized structured component analysis (GSCA), which investigate comprehensively the inner model (hypothesis testing for the structural model) and the outer model (measurement model for unobservable variables). The Sobel test (under the GSCA model) was used to test whether a particular variable mediates the relationship between endogenous variables and exogenous variables. Findings The party’s image influences voters’ satisfaction. The party’s image will not directly influence voters’ loyalty, but it will influence voters’ loyalty with the mediating effect of voters’ satisfaction. Research limitations/implications The findings of this study that makes the social security program as one of the themes in the competition reinforces previous studies such as in the Philippines, Thailand, Mexico and Brazil (2012). Various jargons are often thrown around to gain votes and support from the poor. For example, the term “populist economy”, where free public health and education services are often declared in various political campaigns, both in the legislative member and regional head elections. Practical implications The results of this research, i.e. the influence of the party’s image for electoral interests, would reinforce the results of previous studies. Sometimes the politicians use the poverty program, which is apparently neutral, but actually for the sake of political interests (Gallego, 2015). The results of this study show that the manipulation of government programs is often done to help the politicians in mobilizing the voters. However, in practices, the voters? satisfaction and loyalty are interpreted differently. The voters do not always sell their votes because of what they receive; it could be that the voters receive the assistance by considering it as a fortune or wage in return for helping the politicians. It was proved by the results of this study that the incumbent lost the election. Social implications Using the party’s image in a political contest has created serious implications in the development of democracy in Indonesia. Indonesia, which has chosen democracy as a political route, is still highly vulnerable to clientelistic practices. Although procedurally Indonesia has paved the main democratic consolidation after the reform, ranging from the legislative election to the presidential election to the regional head election, the practice of money politics is still occurring widely. The problem of vote-buying is more difficult to solve because law enforcement mechanisms are not conducted properly. For example, only three days were given to prove the allegation of vote-buying. Of course, this short time makes it difficult to prove the practice of money politics at lower levels. Originality/value The originality of this research can be seen from the following explanation: based on the results of data processing, there are interesting things observed, with the party’s image as the exogenous variable, voters’ satisfaction as the intervening endogenous variable and voters’ loyalty as the pure endogenous variable. This means that more and more community empowerment will increase the desirability of a candidate. This is unique in itself, where with this result, it can be concluded that North Konawe communities are more affected by the nature of the aid empowerment, durable and sustainable/long-term rather than momentary relief (cash).

ABSTRACTDrawing upon theoretical studies on the policy impact of political parties, this article address cross-national differences in financial policy choice and capital market development in Malaysia and Thailand. An explanatory approach that considers inter-party organisational dimensions in tandem with intra-party structural attributes shows that financial and regulatory policies have varied significantly between Malaysia and Thailand in response to the national configurations of political parties. The different patterns of policy choices, in turn, have led to varied capital market structures and development trajectories. Thus the theoretical literature on the political economy of financial capitalism in developed countries, which stresses the importance of domestic political institutions, has implications for the political underpinnings of financial market reforms in emerging market countries.

On May 20, 2014, the Royal Army imposed martial law on Thailand, with the declared purpose of restoring peace to the people. Allegedly, the military intervened to put an end to seven months of political turmoil that had begun when the PDRC—the English acronym for the Thai People's Committee for Absolute Democracy with the King as Head of State—occupied key street intersections and government offices in Bangkok. The conservative mobilization had demanded the deposition of elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the complete dismissal of “the Thaksin system”—a network that had dominated electoral politics in the previous thirteen years, in the PDRC's view through corruption and vote-buying. To fight this injustice, the PDRC had called for deep constitutional reforms before the next elections could be held.

The contribution of the manufacturing sector in gross domestic product (GDP) has been a cause of concern, as India contributes only 16 per cent to the GDP in comparison to other rapidly developing economies, for example, the manufacturing sector of Thailand contributes 34 per cent to the GDP, China 32 per cent and South Korea 31 per cent. Currently, India stands at 134th position out of 189 economies under Doing Business Index. Its rank has also declined in the Global Manufacturing Index in comparison to the previous year. The Government of India in the year 2014 initiated a campaign titled Make in India to foster the growth of the manufacturing sector. In the initial phase of the campaign, the primary focus was on three key tactics namely reviving domestic investment, ensuring the ease of doing business and attracting foreign investors to invest in the manufacturing sector. The government later on realized that first there is a need to bring reforms in the decades old labour laws. This has urged the government to consider reforms in labour laws which will make Indian labour market more competitive in international market. The government has initiated these reforms by proposing certain amendments in the Factories Act 1948 and by including few provisions in the Labour Laws Amendment Act, 2011, and the Apprenticeship (Amendment) Act, 2014. The article attempts to analyze the impact of these reforms on success of Make in India campaign by studying the overall impact of these labour law reforms from employees and employers’ perspective and contribution of labour reforms in Make in India campaign by using the theory of structural change, fundamentals and growth given by Rodrik (2013b, Harvard Business Review). It also analyzes the impact of these reforms on two key aspects of the campaign, that is, focusing on job creation and skill enhancement.

Thailand has one of the highest incarceration rates of women in the world. With an increasing prison population overall as well as an increasing proportion of female inmates, the country faces one of its most challenging tasks in penitentiary administration: reforms to its legal landscape and its correctional practices in line with international standards. A response to such a crisis is to undertake a prison evaluation project to ensure proper implementation of the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (also known as the ‘Bangkok Rules’). The primary objective of this research article is to assess and identify a prison model that can inspire the development of other prison facilities, while supporting a firm commitment to maintain and improve the status of current model facilities.

Tropical forests can provide forest dwellers with a sizable proportion of their dietary needs. Yet, many development and conservation organizations tend to disregard these opportunities, promoting market-oriented reforms that aim at introducing cash crops and markets for non- timber forest products (NTFPs) in the name of poverty alleviation and/or biodiversity conservation. In so doing, they help relegate wild food plants to the position of food for the poor (De Beer & McDermott 1996; Neumann & Hirsch 2000), reserve food in case of famine (Takasaki et al. 2004), or food supplementing that produced on farm plots (Ousseynou & Tieguhong 2004). This comment discusses the economic rationale for the consumption of wild edible plants by forest-dwelling communities, comparing the results obtained from two methods of evaluation. The paper is based on one month of fieldwork during December 2004 carried out by the author together with Theresa Wong and two specially-trained research assistants in Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary (Western Thailand).

‘Deep-free trade agreements (FTA)-maker-multilateralist’ nations are obliged to find unconventional ways to co-exist with China in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); and this obligation is becoming more obvious. There is a possibility for Japan’s involvement in enlisting soft law mechanisms in order to ensure China’s BRI projects conform to high standards; and this serves as a main argument of this article. In my view, with its unique geographic position, the existing fierce rivalry in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the country’s intertwining market with China, Japan’s capacity to reform the BRI from the inside should not be underestimated. On the contrary, by persisting with high Quality Infrastructure Investment (QII) principles promoted in the last three years, Japan has been successful in nudging China toward these principles. The country has also enabled China to endorse the notion of high-quality infrastructure at the second BRI forum. With Japan’s leadership, the G20 Osaka Summit has contributed considerably into bolstering of the QII principles. Moreover, despite being less institutionalized and having soft law nature, the Japan-China Memorandum on Business Cooperation in Third Countries is effective: The Memorandum utilizes and suppresses the harm caused by the economic activities of Chinese businesses in third-country markets. Presently, Sino-Japanese collaboration in Thailand’s East- West Economic Corridor Program is testing whether the Chinese government is capable of earnestly engaging in ‘Third Party Market Cooperation’, or whether this endeavour is futile. BRI, FOIP, quality infrastructure, third-party market cooperation forum, China-Japan Relations

The global economic system requires greater coordination and coherence in order not to provoke international financial and economic crises. Therefore, to minimize financial and economic crises, such a powerful center as the IMF functions. In general, the IMF is based on the neoliberal North Atlantic market values; it creates the conditions for cooperation between stakeholders and protects its legitimacy in the long term, increasing its effectiveness. Not all countries can cooperate productively with the IMF; there is sometimes a decline in the rate of economic growth and the intensification of crisis phenomena in their economies (Somalia – 1981; Kenya – 1990s; Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand – 1997 Argentina – 2001, and others). However, there are positive examples of world-wide cooperation with the IMF: Peru – 1956, Mexico – 1956, 1982 and 1994, Portugal – 2011–2014, Cambodia – 1992, Brazil – 2015–2016, Poland – 2009–2011, Greece and Cyprus – 2009–2010, etc. Cooperation with the IMF is always a definite indicator of the reforms and confidence of Western investors in countries with which the IMF cooperates. Cooperation with the IMF is always a definite indicator of reforms and confidence of Western investors in countries with which the IMF cooperates: if such values prevail in the country, and government institutions are formed fully and impartially (market environment, rule of law, antitrust constraints, infrastructure availability, etc.), then there is the possibility of mutually beneficial cooperation. Without this, cooperation will be ineffective and will not always lead to economic growth. Cooperation with the IMF for Ukraine as of 2015–2020 is important, given the need to ensure financial and economic stability. Such cooperation makes it possible to reduce the interest on servicing and the frequency of entering the international commercial loan markets. However, if cooperation with the IMF is not continued, then the risks of increasing debt burden on the budget, the destabilization of exchange rate policy and, as a consequence, crisis phenomena in Ukraine’s economy will increase. This leads to the intensification of systemic changes and reforms that will allow Ukraine to achieve successful results in cooperation with the IMF.

2010 was the year Australia initiated and signed Project Childhood, a grant and partnership to protect children from sexual exploitation due to travel and tourism. Four countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, are in a sub-region where child sex tourism occurs a lot. The phenomenon of transnational borders will involve sending country as the country of traveling child sex offenders, and receiving country for victims coordinates to make serious law enforcement regarding this issue. In formulating foreign policy, domestic factors are one way of looking at why Australia provides funding, assistance, and initiate international cooperation to combat child sex tourism in GMS. Through this research, the authors will explain the domestic factors that influence Australia in initiating Project Childhood as its foreign policy, using domestic determinants as the level of analysis. Then, it will be divided into 3 sub-determinants, they are; highly stable, demonstrating an Australian responsibility for TCSO originating in the country. This is related to one of the demographic components that cause migration problems. Moderately stable, in relation to the domestic reforms that are actively being carried out in the context of enforcing the extraterritoriality. The last, unstable, the factor of public opinion which also has played an important role so that the government gives attention to this phenomenon

Although the average poverty level in Lao PDR has declined substantially since the beginning of economic reforms in 1986, sub-national dynamics give rise to a discussion of the trends and issues that determine and sustain provincial poverty and the variegated processes of rural transition. It appears that migration to core areas does not always generate better living standards, as migration to Vientiane Capital and Vientiane Province also results in a relocation of poverty from peripheral to core areas. This article sheds light on these problems and discusses the implications for the spatial dimensions of poverty in core provinces located on emerging Greater Mekong Subregion corridors and peripheral provinces. A case study of Savannakhet, located along the East West Economic Corridor, shows how rural households cope with the pressures arising from increasing market forces and regionalization. Based on in-depth fieldwork in the village of Ban Gnang Pho Sy, the results indicate that a shift occurred among the rural poor, in which their livelihoods changed from being based purely on subsistence agriculture to being focused increasingly upon pluriactive (commercial) farming, livelihood diversification and labour migration to Thailand. Provinces located along emerging corridors experience a complex mosaic of impacts of integration due to fragmented ethnic-linguistic geographies and the varying relevance of pull versus push factors: imports versus exports, inward versus outward investments, and in- versus out-migration. In sum, rather than the neoliberal promise of a flatter socioeconomic landscape, the human geography of the Greater Mekong Subregion remains rough, due to politicization of foreign direct investments, complex land dealings and landlessness, migration patterns and rising inequality.

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This article examines royal governance under King Maha Vajiralongkorn (Rama X) for the light it sheds on Thailand's recent political development. It is argued that the existence of “fear” defines Vajiralongkorn's relationship with the people. For members of the ruling class, fear keeps them in check. Within the palace, promotion and demotion are vital for control. The Royal Gazette (Rachakitjanubeksa) has become a platform for public humiliation that operates to inculcate fear. For the public, fear proliferates through a variety of means, including employing laws to punish critics of the monarchy, particularly the exploitation of lèse-majesté law, with the state's keen cooperation. But the 2020 protests, which demanded immediate monarchical reform, seriously challenged Vajiralongkorn's fear-based royal governance. The Thai case demonstrates that fear, a centuries-old form of governance used by many rulers to control their subjects, is no longer an effective tool of governance in modern, middle-class-driven, capitalist societies, like Thailand. Fear has a tendency to backfire on a sovereign if overused.

How do domestic political conflicts affect capital flows into Thailand? This article advances the current understanding in two ways. First, it adopts a new method for measuring political uncertainty using Thai-language newspapers over the past 20 years. Given that the nature of political conflicts is multi-faceted, these measures cover the various key components of Thai political tensions—both within and outside of parliament. Second, how different types of tensions affect capital flows are examined using a quantile regression framework—allowing an examination of effects upon the overall distribution of capital flows. The empirical results indicate that Thai political conflicts significantly and adversely affect both foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investment at the left tails of their distribution. The results also highlight how different types of political conflicts affect capital flows in different ways. For example, uncertainty about a military coup and government measures regarding martial law or emergency decrees have a strong negative effect upon foreign direct investment flows; whereas heightened political protest and news about constitutional reform play a significant role in explaining the risk reversal of foreign portfolio investment flows.

The reduction of illegal logging and related trade has been on the international policy agenda since the 1990s. The EU's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade initiative (EU-FLEGT) seeks to address illegal logging through a scheme that rests on multistakeholder negotiations. However, past initiatives seeking to reform forest governance in the global South have reproduced the uneven outcomes of colonial forest governance by further empowering national government authorities. In the case of Thailand, FLEGT negotiations between November 2013 and April 2021 succeeded in opening a political space for civil society to engage with government actors. However, FLEGT negotiations during this period failed to address the uneven outcomes of forest governance, benefiting elites at the expense of the rural poor due to an 'anti-politics effect. The FLEGT multistakeholder negotiations did not consider the uneven historical relations to land and resource rights nor the intrinsic power dynamics of different actor groups. As such, dominant actors from the government and private sector succeeded in structuring the terrain of the FLEGT negotiations to determine which civil society demands for reforms to tenure and resource rights they would concede, and which they would not.

Abstract This article addresses the impacts of the carding system (green, yellow, red) of the European Union (EU) Regulation on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing on the fisheries laws of third countries. Specifically, it analyzes Thailand's national legal reforms, which followed interactions between the EU and Thailand during the yellow card period. Building on past research on the EU's use of market power to exert regulatory influence on third countries, the article explores other factors that might encourage third countries to engage in national regulatory reforms: the EU's powers of expertise, monitoring, and agenda-setting. Finally, the article also considers the legitimacy of the EU's regulatory power over third countries.

Education is essential for any country to secure its future, but COVID-19 has caused considerable difficulty in Thailand. The COVID-19 pandemic harms the education of the students. The online education system is adopted in almost all parts of the globe. However, the pandemic has been impacting the overall quality of the education system. This research explored the experiences of law students in Thailand by analyzing several factors which affect their intellect. The methodology adopted for this study was a multiple method study. The sample size of 330 law students selected from leading Thai universities was analyzed qualitatively through Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat (SWOT) analysis and regression model for the quantitative analysis. The findings revealed that factors including internet availability, accessibility to own gadgets, online resources, government, social media, and classrooms have a significant impact on the education system of Thai law students. The study paves way for further microanalysis of the educational system in Thailand with the perceptions and experiences of teachers and parents.

Abstract Self-care is the ability and empowerment of individuals to maintain health through informed healthcare decisions, with or without the support of a health provider. High-income countries have made advances to its conceptualization, research, and institutionalization given its reported benefits to patients, the health system, and economy. A similar undertaking in low- and middle-countries (LMICs) with already fragile health systems is warranted as highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our paper therefore aimed to describe and analyze the policy environment of self-care using the Philippines as a case study, which may have relevance to other similar countries and settings that are transitioning towards Universal Health Care (UHC) to reform and strengthen their primary care systems. We conducted 13 key informant interviews and two focus group discussions among representatives from the government, the pharmaceutical retail/ industry, community retail pharmacy, primary health physicians and health workers, an infirmary administrator, and patients and/or patient advocates. We triangulated our qualitative data with findings from our policy review. We found a total of 13 relevant policies on self-care in the Philippines recently drafted and/or implemented from 2016 to 2021 that fall under the broad categories of unifying frameworks and roadmaps, capacity building and institutional streamlining, regulations, and disease guidelines. Our case study highlights the role of the UHC Law as a driver for self-care and patient empowerment towards better health outcomes with its passage resulting in the promulgation of self-care-related policies. Our findings also suggest that changes in the local policy and built environment, and the formal educational and health systems, are needed to foster a culture of responsible self-care. There are notable exemplars in advancing self-care in the region, including Thailand, from which LMICs like the Philippines can draw lessons to make progress on institutionalizing self-care and ultimately, realizing universal health coverage and Health For All.

Abstract The Asian elephant Elephas maximus is of cultural significance for the Thai people. The development of legal protection for elephants in Thailand dates back to the 17th century, reflecting concerns about both human livelihoods and elephant conservation. The legal status of privately owned, captive elephants differs from that of wild individuals, with consequences for the lawful use of ivory from captive animals. Prior to 2015, the lack of comprehensive measures to control the Thai ivory market enabled the laundering of illegally sourced ivory in the country. The Thai government introduced legal reforms in 2015, imposing strict controls over the possession and domestic trade of ivory from captive Asian elephants, and aligning the protection of African elephants and their ivory with CITES regulations. Nonetheless, the sustainable use of Thai ivory remains disputed, and international pressure to close the commercial trade in domestic ivory persists. Here we review this complex situation, aiming to inform future reforms. Consolidation of laws related to elephants and ivory would facilitate law enforcement and compliance. Use of an electronic database would improve the monitoring of ivory movements and aid the implementation and enforcement of laws.

Due to the severity of the Asian Financial Crisis 1997–1998, South Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand resorted to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. In exchange, the IMF demanded a series of reforms intended to promote rule-based institutions generally found in advanced Western economies, such as the rule of law. Using panel data analysis from 1982 to 2007, we test empirically whether judicial independence, one of the more fundamental rule-based institutions, can positively explain the growth of these countries after the crisis, and find the impact of reforms to be limited. To understand why, we use South Korea as an example to show that top-down reforms by the government prevented a shift towards a rule-based economy. Due to the government selectively bailing out big businesses, big businesses that survived the crisis captured market shares once owned by the dissolved big businesses, becoming too powerful for the government to regulate. This research uses Soifer’s theoretical framework on critical junctures.

The process of disinvestment is going on not only in India but also in China, Russia, Brazil, Taiwan, Hungary, Thailand, Philippines, Korea, Turkey, Poland, West Asia, Zambia and Vietnam . Object of disinvestment is to reduce the financial burden on the government, improve public finances, introduce competition and market discipline, funds growth, encourage wider share of ownership and depoliticize non-essential services. Disinvestment improves corporate governance, develops and deepens the capital market through spread of equity culture, enhances corporate governance with the induction of independent directors developing and deepening of capital market, developing infrastructure, defence, education, healthcare and law and order. Private sector involves in PSUs by disinvestments. There are a lot of merits in private sector. In private sector, the decision-making process is quick, decisions are liked with the competitive markets changes. In private sector, better corporate governances, exposure, competitive corporate responsibility and transparency are found. The loss making PSUs can be successfully revived by asking the strategic partners to infuse fresh capital and exercising excellent management control over sick PSUs.

What explains economic growth in Southeast Asia? The region’s growth rate has generally varied very widely. Using the country’s specific base years and local currency, the time series results revealed that Myanmar grows the fastest and is to double production capabilities in only two years. Driven primarily by agriculture, garments, construction and tourism sectors Cambodia’s growth doubles in two years as well. Lao People’s Democratic Republic, a once centrally planned economy, doubles in three years. Doi Moi Reforms take Vietnam 10 years to realize fully development plans while Indonesia’s remarkable growth of 11.78% takes the country only six years to grow two folds. Philippines and Thailand need to wait 19 and 16 years respectively. Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Singapore though grow slowly, dominate welfare satisfaction indexes as governments continue to implement people centered policies. Overall, the manufacturing sector is largely fueling growth, supported heavily by construction, trade, public administration and other sectors. Hence, massive production and international trading are required to ensure growth. Heavy investments on construction, telecommunications, and electronics are essential as well. Behind all these, rests the effective capabilities of the public administration sector to manage efficiently the financial servicing and gigantic active trading of Southeast Asian countries. Keywords - Southeast Asian economies, economic performance, growth by industrial origin

The curtain rose. The howling of desert wind filled the performance hall in the Shanghai Grand Theatre. Into the center stage, where a scenic construction of a mountain cliff and a desert landscape was dimly lit, entered the character of the Daoist priest Wang Yuanlu (1849–1931), performed by Chen Yizong. Dressed in a worn and dusty outfit of dark blue cotton, characteristic of Daoist priests, Wang began to sweep the floor. After a few moments, he discovered a hidden chambre sealed inside one of the rock sanctuaries carved into the cliff.Signaled by the quick, crystalline, stirring wave of sound from the chimes, a melodious Chinese ocarina solo joined in slowly from the background. Astonished by thousands of Buddhist sūtra scrolls, wall paintings, and sculptures he had just accidentally discovered in the caves, Priest Wang set his broom aside and began to examine these treasures. Dawn had not yet arrived, and the desert sky was pitch-black. Priest Wang held his oil lamp high, strode rhythmically in excitement, sat crossed-legged in a meditative pose, and unfolded a scroll. The sound of the ocarina became fuller and richer and the texture of the music more complex, as several other instruments joined in.Below is the opening scene of the award-winning, theatrical dance-drama Dunhuang, My Dreamland, created by China’s state-sponsored Lanzhou Song and Dance Theatre in 2000. Figure 1a: Poster Side A of Dunhuang, My Dreamland Figure 1b: Poster Side B of Dunhuang, My DreamlandThe scene locates the dance-drama in the rock sanctuaries that today are known as the Dunhuang Mogao Caves, housing Buddhist art accumulated over a period of a thousand years, one of the best well-known UNESCO heritages on the Silk Road. Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). Travellers, especially Buddhist monks from India and central Asia, passing through Dunhuang on their way to Chang’an (present day Xi’an), China’s ancient capital, would stop to meditate in the Mogao Caves and consult manuscripts in the monastery's library. At the same time, Chinese pilgrims would travel by foot from China through central Asia to Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, playing a key role in the exchanges between ancient China and the outside world. Travellers from China would stop to acquire provisions at Dunhuang before crossing the Gobi Desert to continue on their long journey abroad. Figure 2: Dunhuang Mogao CavesThis article approaches the idea of “abroad” by examining the present-day imagination of journeys along the Silk Road—specifically, staged performances of the various Silk Road journey-themed dance-dramas sponsored by the Chinese state for enhancing its cultural and foreign policies since the 1970s (Kuang).As ethnomusicologists have demonstrated, musicians, choreographers, and playwrights often utilise historical materials in their performances to construct connections between the past and the present (Bohlman; Herzfeld; Lam; Rees; Shelemay; Tuohy; Wade; Yung: Rawski; Watson). The ancient Silk Road, which linked the Mediterranean coast with central China and beyond, via oasis towns such as Samarkand, has long been associated with the concept of “journeying abroad.” Journeys to distant, foreign lands and encounters of unknown, mysterious cultures along the Silk Road have been documented in historical records, such as A Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Faxian) and The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions (Xuanzang), and illustrated in classical literature, such as The Travels of Marco Polo (Polo) and the 16th century Chinese novel Journey to the West (Wu). These journeys—coming and going from multiple directions and to different destinations—have inspired contemporary staged performance for audiences around the globe.Home and Abroad: Dunhuang and the Silk RoadDunhuang, My Dreamland (2000), the contemporary dance-drama, staged the journey of a young pilgrim painter travelling from Chang’an to a land of the unfamiliar and beyond borders, in search for the arts that have inspired him. Figure 3: A scene from Dunhuang, My Dreamland showing the young pilgrim painter in the Gobi Desert on the ancient Silk RoadFar from his home, he ended his journey in Dunhuang, historically considered the northwestern periphery of China, well beyond Yangguan and Yumenguan, the bordering passes that separate China and foreign lands. Later scenes in Dunhuang, My Dreamland, portrayed through multiethnic music and dances, the dynamic interactions among merchants, cultural and religious envoys, warriors, and politicians that were making their own journey from abroad to China. The theatrical dance-drama presents a historically inspired, re-imagined vision of both “home” and “abroad” to its audiences as they watch the young painter travel along the Silk Road, across the Gobi Desert, arriving at his own ideal, artistic “homeland”, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves. Since his journey is ultimately a spiritual one, the conceptualisation of travelling “abroad” could also be perceived as “a journey home.”Staged more than four hundred times since it premiered in Beijing in April 2000, Dunhuang, My Dreamland is one of the top ten titles in China’s National Stage Project and one of the most successful theatrical dance-dramas ever produced in China. With revenue of more than thirty million renminbi (RMB), it ranks as the most profitable theatrical dance-drama ever produced in China, with a preproduction cost of six million RMB. The production team receives financial support from China’s Ministry of Culture for its “distinctive ethnic features,” and its “aim to promote traditional Chinese culture,” according to Xu Rong, an official in the Cultural Industry Department of the Ministry. Labeled an outstanding dance-drama of the Chinese nation, it aims to present domestic and international audiences with a vision of China as a historically multifaceted and cosmopolitan nation that has been in close contact with the outside world through the ancient Silk Road. Its production company has been on tour in selected cities throughout China and in countries abroad, including Austria, Spain, and France, literarily making the young pilgrim painter’s “journey along the Silk Road” a new journey abroad, off stage and in reality.Dunhuang, My Dreamland was not the first, nor is it the last, staged performances that portrays the Chinese re-imagination of “journeying abroad” along the ancient Silk Road. It was created as one of many versions of Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a genre of music, dance, and dramatic performances created in the early twentieth century and based primarily on artifacts excavated from the Mogao Caves (Kuang). “The Mogao Caves are the greatest repository of early Chinese art,” states Mimi Gates, who works to increase public awareness of the UNESCO site and raise funds toward its conservation. “Located on the Chinese end of the Silk Road, it also is the place where many cultures of the world intersected with one another, so you have Greek and Roman, Persian and Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese cultures, all interacting. Given the nature of our world today, it is all very relevant” (Pollack). As an expressive art form, this genre has been thriving since the late 1970s contributing to the global imagination of China’s “Silk Road journeys abroad” long before Dunhuang, My Dreamland achieved its domestic and international fame. For instance, in 2004, The Thousand-Handed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteśvara—one of the most representative (and well-known) Dunhuang bihua yuewu programs—was staged as a part of the cultural program during the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece. This performance, as well as other Dunhuang bihua yuewu dance programs was the perfect embodiment of a foreign religion that arrived in China from abroad and became Sinicized (Kuang). Figure 4: Mural from Dunhuang Mogao Cave No. 45A Brief History of Staging the Silk Road JourneysThe staging of the Silk Road journeys abroad began in the late 1970s. Historically, the Silk Road signifies a multiethnic, cosmopolitan frontier, which underwent incessant conflicts between Chinese sovereigns and nomadic peoples (as well as between other groups), but was strongly imbued with the customs and institutions of central China (Duan, Mair, Shi, Sima). In the twentieth century, when China was no longer an empire, but had become what the early 20th-century reformer Liang Qichao (1873–1929) called “a nation among nations,” the long history of the Silk Road and the colourful, legendary journeys abroad became instrumental in the formation of a modern Chinese nation of unified diversity rooted in an ancient cosmopolitan past. The staged Silk Road theme dance-dramas thus participate in this formation of the Chinese imagination of “nation” and “abroad,” as they aestheticise Chinese history and geography. History and geography—aspects commonly considered constituents of a nation as well as our conceptualisations of “abroad”—are “invariably aestheticized to a certain degree” (Bakhtin 208). Diverse historical and cultural elements from along the Silk Road come together in this performance genre, which can be considered the most representative of various possible stagings of the history and culture of the Silk Road journeys.In 1979, the Chinese state officials in Gansu Province commissioned the benchmark dance-drama Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, a spectacular theatrical dance-drama praising the pure and noble friendship which existed between the peoples of China and other countries in the Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.). While its plot also revolves around the Dunhuang Caves and the life of a painter, staged at one of the most critical turning points in modern Chinese history, the work as a whole aims to present the state’s intention of re-establishing diplomatic ties with the outside world after the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, it presents a nation’s journey abroad and home. To accomplish this goal, Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road introduces the fictional character Yunus, a wealthy Persian merchant who provides the audiences a vision of the historical figure of Peroz III, the last Sassanian prince, who after the Arab conquest of Iran in 651 C.E., found refuge in China. By incorporating scenes of ethnic and folk dances, the drama then stages the journey of painter Zhang’s daughter Yingniang to Persia (present-day Iran) and later, Yunus’s journey abroad to the Tang dynasty imperial court as the Persian Empire’s envoy.Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road, since its debut at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on the first of October 1979 and shortly after at the Theatre La Scala in Milan, has been staged in more than twenty countries and districts, including France, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Latvia, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and recently, in 2013, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.“The Road”: Staging the Journey TodayWithin the contemporary context of global interdependencies, performing arts have been used as strategic devices for social mobilisation and as a means to represent and perform modern national histories and foreign policies (Davis, Rees, Tian, Tuohy, Wong, David Y. H. Wu). The Silk Road has been chosen as the basis for these state-sponsored, extravagantly produced, and internationally staged contemporary dance programs. In 2008, the welcoming ceremony and artistic presentation at the Olympic Games in Beijing featured twenty apsara dancers and a Dunhuang bihua yuewu dancer with long ribbons, whose body was suspended in mid-air on a rectangular LED extension held by hundreds of performers; on the giant LED screen was a depiction of the ancient Silk Road.In March 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping introduced the initiatives “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” during his journeys abroad in Kazakhstan and Indonesia. These initiatives are now referred to as “One Belt, One Road.” The State Council lists in details the policies and implementation plans for this initiative on its official web page, www.gov.cn. In April 2013, the China Institute in New York launched a yearlong celebration, starting with "Dunhuang: Buddhist Art and the Gateway of the Silk Road" with a re-creation of one of the caves and a selection of artifacts from the site. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, released a new action plan outlining key details of the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. Xi Jinping has made the program a centrepiece of both his foreign and domestic economic policies. One of the central economic strategies is to promote cultural industry that could enhance trades along the Silk Road.Encouraged by the “One Belt, One Road” policies, in March 2016, The Silk Princess premiered in Xi’an and was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing the following July. While Dunhuang, My Dreamland and Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road were inspired by the Buddhist art found in Dunhuang, The Silk Princess, based on a story about a princess bringing silk and silkworm-breeding skills to the western regions of China in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) has a different historical origin. The princess's story was portrayed in a woodblock from the Tang Dynasty discovered by Sir Marc Aurel Stein, a British archaeologist during his expedition to Xinjiang (now Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region) in the early 19th century, and in a temple mural discovered during a 2002 Chinese-Japanese expedition in the Dandanwulike region. Figure 5: Poster of The Silk PrincessIn January 2016, the Shannxi Provincial Song and Dance Troupe staged The Silk Road, a new theatrical dance-drama. Unlike Dunhuang, My Dreamland, the newly staged dance-drama “centers around the ‘road’ and the deepening relationship merchants and travellers developed with it as they traveled along its course,” said Director Yang Wei during an interview with the author. According to her, the show uses seven archetypes—a traveler, a guard, a messenger, and so on—to present the stories that took place along this historic route. Unbounded by specific space or time, each of these archetypes embodies the foreign-travel experience of a different group of individuals, in a manner that may well be related to the social actors of globalised culture and of transnationalism today. Figure 6: Poster of The Silk RoadConclusionAs seen in Rain of Flowers along the Silk Road and Dunhuang, My Dreamland, staging the processes of Silk Road journeys has become a way of connecting the Chinese imagination of “home” with the Chinese imagination of “abroad.” Staging a nation’s heritage abroad on contemporary stages invites a new imagination of homeland, borders, and transnationalism. Once aestheticised through staged performances, such as that of the Dunhuang bihua yuewu, the historical and topological landscape of Dunhuang becomes a performed narrative, embodying the national heritage.The staging of Silk Road journeys continues, and is being developed into various forms, from theatrical dance-drama to digital exhibitions such as the Smithsonian’s Pure Land: Inside the Mogao Grottes at Dunhuang (Stromberg) and the Getty’s Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China's Silk Road (Sivak and Hood). 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