Tyrell Caroline Haberkorn

Dictatorship on Trial in Thailand analyzes the individual, social, and legal impacts of the five years of dictatorship under the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO, 2014-2019) and identifies how they might be redressed and justice forged. First, drawing on extensive court observation and human rights research, I enumerate the kinds of violence used by the junta, the how victims were made vulnerable rather than protected by the law, and the practical and structural mechanisms through which perpetrators evaded accountability. Second, I correlate this analysis with the relevant articles of Thai law and Thailand’s international human rights obligations to write a draft indictment of the NCPO. Third, I revisit a series of cases in which the court adjudicated in favor of the junta and the abrogation of the people’s rights and rewrite the decisions with a more just interpretation that approaches the state and the people as equal parties.