EU pressure effective?
In recent years, communities displaced by sugar plantations have attempted to reclaim their land by targeting the plantations’ investors and buyers overseas, but a study published last week in the peer-reviewed Journal of Civil Society suggests such efforts may disappoint. Author Young Sokphea notes that after years of both peaceful and violent protest by community members being met with repressive measures by both the Cambodian government and involved companies, they took their struggle overseas. With the assistance of NGOs, they began targeting companies and markets buying the plantations’ sugar through a range of means, from advocacy to an ongoing lawsuit in the British courts. Sokphea found, however, that political patronage bestowed upon plantations protected them from many measures enacted by the government in response to international pressure. He also found that lobbying the European Union had limited effects, despite its status as Cambodia’s largest donor.
