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Article 57 paragraph 1 ( 2) , Article 65 paragraph 1, Article 72 paragraph 1 ( 1) , Article 250
paragraph 1, and Article 257 paragraph 1 (1)
The Organic Act on the National Human Right Commission B. E. 2560 Article 4 defines
the word “ human rights” extensively as human dignity, rights, freedom, and equality of person
and community which are recognized or protected by the Constitution, laws or agreements with
Thailand as member party and having legal obligation for implementation accordi ngly. The
expansion of the definition on “ human rights” by such organic law to also cover “ constitutional
rights” enables the National Human Right Commission to investigate cases on wrongful acts
against the “community rights”.
In designing the legal concept for establishing basic legal infrastructure relevant to the
community rights and the management of natural resources and environment, the so -called “legal
pluralism” must be introduced within the Thai legal system. Two main benefits of the legal
pluralism can be explained as follows: 1) Building the bridge between two different poles of
“ school of thoughts” by applying them in the same legal system: one is State- power oriented,
namely “ legal positivism” , another one is community- based, namely “ anthropological
jurisprudence” and “ sociological jurisprudence” . For decades, the Thai legal system has been
under the influence of the legal positivism. In managing the natural resources and environment,
laws thus mainly give power to State organizations, but does not open spaces for recognizing
the “ rights of community” . 2) Building linkage between different types of property regime in
managing the natural resources within the same legal system, namely State property regime,
private property regime and common property regime, especially the connection between the
“State property regime” and the “common property regime”, by making the law stipulating an
innovative pattern in managing the natural resources, called “co-management”, a mixed system
of the two regimes with two actors: the State and the community. Such co-management has
special character called “community-based co-management’ where the community plays main
role and the State have more supplemental role in supporting the community.