Cambodia: Communities reach resolution with Mitr Phol

Engaging with Multi-Stakeholder Initiative Bonsucro 

In 2011, after identifying Mitr Phol as the hidden owner of the Cambodian shell companies behind the land grabs in Oddar Meanchey, Inclusive Development International’s founders worked with representatives of the evicted families to submit a complaint to the grievance mechanism of Bonsucro, an industry dominated “sustainable” sugarcane multi-stakeholder initiative to which Mitr Phol belonged. The complaint was accepted, but rather than addressing the allegations, Mitr Phol withdrew from the initiative. Three years later, however, the company was quietly reinstated as a Bonsucro member even though it had failed to re-engage in the complaint resolution process. This was despite an express written commitment in 2012 by the then-chair of Bonsucro’s Complaints and Grievances Committee that engagement in the resolution process would be a condition of readmission should the company choose to rejoin. 

Engaging the Thai National Human Rights Commission 

In May 2013, Inclusive Development International’s Cambodian partners filed a complaint with the Thai National Human Rights Commission on behalf of the affected communities alleging that Mitr Phol’s Cambodian subsidiaries were implicated in serious human rights violations in relation to its land concessions in Oddar Meanchey.  

In October 2015, the Thai National Human Rights Commission issued its investigation report, finding Mitr Phol directly responsible for the forced evictions and associated human rights violations and in serious breach of its responsibilities under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Importantly, the Commission found that, although Mitr Phol has since ceased its operations in Cambodia and relinquished its economic land concessions there, the company had an ongoing responsibility to provide compensation and other appropriate remedies for the losses and human rights impacts suffered by people in Bos, O’Bat Moan, Taman, Trapaing Veng and Ktum villages as a direct result of its previous business activities. 

At a press conference, the Thai human rights commissioner Niran Phitakwatchara said that the land grabs led to the “collapse of the community.” Rarely, if ever, had a national human rights commission issued such a strong condemnation of a private company. Yet, Mitr Phol still refused to provide any form of compensation to the Cambodian families whose lives it destroyed. 

Holding Bonsucro Accountable 

In 2016, Inclusive Development International, together with local partners Equitable Cambodia and the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), submitted a new complaint to Bonsucro on behalf of 712 families. The complaint requested that Bonsucro appoint a competent and impartial mediator to attempt to bring about a resolution of the case through the provision of adequate compensation to affected households, and if such a resolution could not be reached, to expel Mitr Phol from the organization for breaching its Code of Conduct. Two years later, Bonsucro’s board dismissed the complaint without taking any action, while at the same time accepting Mitr Phol’s paid sponsorship of its Bonsucro Global Week conference in Thailand, which ,showcased Mitr Phol as a “leading member” of the group.   

In March 2019, Inclusive Development International, LICADHO and Equitable Cambodia responded to the group’s obstinacy by lodging a precedent-setting complaint against Bonsucro with the UK National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct (the UK NCP), arguing that the multi-stakeholder initiative breached its human rights responsibilities under the OECD guidelines and U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Bonsucro claimed that its mission was “to ensure that responsible sugarcane production creates lasting value for the people, communities, businesses, economies and eco-systems in all cane-growing regions.” Our complaint alleged that rather than hold Mitr Phol to these standards, Bonsucro had whitewashed the company’s human rights abuses , helping to facilitate access to the global sustainable sugar market. For more about our arguments regarding the human rights responsibilities of Bonsucro and other similar industry sustainability bodies, which rose in response to consumer demand for ethical sourcing, read our blog, “Why Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives Need to be Held Accountable for their Rights Abusing Members.” 

After a lengthy examination, the UK NCP determined in January 2022 that Bonsucro had breached OECD standards and violated its human rights responsibilities. Specifically, it found that 1) MSIs like Bonsucro are multinational enterprises with human rights responsibilities vis-a-vis their members and 2) Bonsucro “did not undertake an appropriate level of due diligence” when it readmitted Mitr Phol as a member in 2015 and, further, that it failed to use its leverage with Mitr Phol to remediate the harms suffered by Cambodian communities devastated by the company’s land grab.  

Bringing a Landmark Human Rights Case against Mitr Phol in Thailand 

Frustrated by the failure of Bonsucro’s grievance mechanism and Mitr Phol’s refusal to compensate the families even in the face of clear recommendations to do so by the Thai Human Rights Commission, Inclusive Development International worked with our Cambodian partners and a team of Thai lawyers to bring a landmark class-action lawsuit against the company in the Thai courts. Hoy Mai & Others vs. Mitr Phol Co. Ltd., filed in April 2018 and representing a class of approximately 3,000 people, was the first ever class-action lawsuit filed in the Thai courts by plaintiffs from another country for abuses committed by a Thai company outside of Thailand. More details about the case are available here. 

When the court of first instance wrongly denied class action status to the plaintiffs, Inclusive Development International and our partners appealed the decision and won. On July 31, 2020, the Bangkok South Civil Court overturned the lower court’s decision and recognized class status for the complaint, allowing the roughly 700 families to bring the lawsuit as a group. For Thailand and the region, the decision changed the legal landscape, providing that class action legislation could be used in transboundary cases and to protect the victims of transnational corporate abuse in Southeast Asia and beyond. In May 2022, the court denied Mitr Phol’s motion to dismiss the case, allowing it to proceed to trial. In February 2025, the parties came to an agreement, leading to a satisfying resolution for the affected communities. 

Engaging with Mitr Phol’s Buyers 

In parallel with other advocacy strategies, Inclusive Development International engaged with Mitr Phol’s buyers on a regular basis, urging them to use their leverage to hold the company accountable to its human rights responsibilities. 

• Inclusive Development International and other members of the Clean Sugar Campaign, a coalition working to address human rights abuses by sugar producers in Cambodia, first wrote to Coca-Cola in November 2013 to urge it to implement its pledge of “zero tolerance for land grabbing” in its supply chain. In response to Oxfam’s Behind the Brands campaign, the Coca-Cola Company had acknowledged its responsibility to take action and use its influence to help protect the land rights of local communities affected by its sugar suppliers and, among other thing, pledged to disclose the names of all its direct cane sugar suppliers (Mitr Phol was disclosed at the time as one of its top three cane suppliers globally), and require respect for and prohibition of the violation of the land rights of communities and traditional peoples in its Sustainable Agriculture Guiding Principles (SAGP). If any supplier failed to uphold any aspect of the SAGP requirements, Coca-Cola Company pledged to “work with the supplier on corrective action. If such action is not taken, the supplier relationship will be terminated.” 

• In a letter to Coca-Cola, Inclusive Development and partners asked the company to make good on these promises in its relationship  with Mitr Phol.   

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While Coca-Cola took some initial steps to investigate the allegations and engaged with Mitr Phol on the concerns, it never made its findings public and failed to use its leverage effectively to compel the company to provide redress to the victims in Cambodia.  

In 2021, Inclusive Development International filed a petition with the U.S. federal court in the Northern District of Georgia, on behalf of plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit underway in Thailand, requesting assistance in obtaining evidence from Coca-Cola from its investigations into Mitr Phol (the U.S. Foreign Legal Assistance Statute permits U.S. courts to assist foreign litigants in obtaining evidence from companies found in the United States). The court ordered Coca-Cola to turn over the information requested, which it determined to be “essential to the full and fair adjudication of the Thai proceedings.”   

 Inclusive Development International also continued to call on all of Mitr Phol’s industrial buyers to use their leverage to ensure that Mitr Phol repaired the grave harms it caused to hundreds of families in Cambodia. In November 2020, ahead of the Ninth UN Forum on Business and Human Rights, where we delivered this joint statement, we wrote to Mitr Phol’s buyers to urge them to act without further delay.