By Rin Sohsai
In early October, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRC) sent a letter to Thailand’s Prime Minister expressing serious concerns about the plans for four more hydropower projects to be built on the mainstream of the Mekong River near the Thai-Lao territorial border— namely, the Sanakham, Pak Chom, Ban Kum and Phu Ngoy dams, all of which will be constructed in Laos but are expected to export electricity to Thailand.
The NHRC letter to the Prime Minister comes in the midst of several high profile incidents of flooding of communities residing along the Mekong riverbanks and its tributaries. It is particularly timely, as the Thai government has been updating the country’s Power Development Plan (PDP) using assumptions based on outdated data and a process which has bypassed meaningful public participation. Meanwhile, government authorities have also failed to provide any assurance that adequate assessment of transboundary impacts have been done prior to moving forward with plans for this massive build-out of hydropower dams. On these matters, crucially, the NHRC findings and recommendations provided to the government echo critical concerns raised persistently by civil society and community based groups in Thailand as well as across the Mekong region.
Site of the proposed Sanakham Dam (October 2023). Credit: International Rivers
Findings Informed by Comprehensive Investigation Process
The NHRC letter to the Prime Minister is the result of an investigation by the NHRC undertaken in response to a joint complaint filed in June 2023 by ETOs Watch Coalition — a network of civil society groups, including International Rivers, which together monitors the human rights and environmental impacts of Thailand’s outbound investments — and the Thai Mekong People’s Network. Commissioners and their staff took the time to not only review documents at hand, but also heard testimonies directly from members of the communities along the Mekong who will be affected by the development of these dams, engaged with civil society groups and academics, held dialogues with local and national government bodies, and undertook site visits to areas within Thailand that stand to be affected by the Sanakham and Phu Ngoy Dam sites.
NHRC’s key findings, which focused on how Thailand and Thai communities will be affected by the development of these dams, highlighted the critical need to consider the following:
- Environmental impacts of dam construction and operations, such as inundation of key agricultural lands, sites of historical and cultural value, as well as highly prized tourist destinations, exacerbated erosion of riverbanks, an irreversible ecological toll on the riverine ecosystems (including to migratory aquatic animals), and flooding along Mekong River tributaries from backwater flows, including the Mun River (affecting the management of water around the Pak Mun Dam site).
- Loss of the viability of fishing methods developed by Thai people over hundreds of years who have depended on local wisdom passed on intergenerationally due to the way in which rapid, heavy fluctuations of water levels from the release of water from dams would destroy critical habitats where fish species lay eggs, as well as the channels they use to migrate up- and downstream.
- Potential exacerbation of territorial water disputes, as the division of water remains under negotiation around the Thai-Lao border. For example, the Sanakham Dam is located a mere 2 kilometers from the territorial water border between Laos and Thailand, currently remaining stalled in the Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA) process under the 1995 Agreement on Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin, which established the Mekong River Commission
- Wide-ranging economic, social, and livelihood impacts, since most people living along the banks of the Mekong River work in riverbank agriculture, fishing and tourism, and will accordingly lose their main sources of income as well as source of water for consumption if the dams are built as planned.
- Jeopardized public safety, as no advance public warning system is in place or preparedness plan shared across borders to respond if emergencies arise due to dam discharges or non-functioning reservoir storage.
Site of the proposed Pak Chom Dam, downstream from the Xayaburi Dam along the Mekong River. View from Pak Chom District, Loei Province, Thailand at the Thai-Lao Border (March 2024). Credit: Chairat Jirojmontree,Transborder News
Human Rights Commission Recommendations Highlight the Need to Act Now
Given the reality that Thai actors are implicated in the plans for these four dams — as developers, potential financiers, buyers of electricity and consumers — as well as the fact that it will be communities in Thailand and national territorial areas that stand to be impacted, the NHRC applied relevant provisions of the Thai constitution and recent Thai government plans and commitments – such as the updated 2nd National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (2023) – to inform their recommendations to the Thai Prime Minister and relevant agencies.
The Commissioners concluded that:
- As the development of the four dams projects risk undermining the Thai people’s rights to livelihood, culture and economic rights, Thailand’s National Mekong River Commission should first examine the cumulative impacts of the Xayaburi Dam’s construction and operations over the past several years and the effectiveness of measures to prevent such ongoing impacts, looking into implications for both affected communities as well as Thailand’s territorial integrity;
- Thailand’s Ministry of Energy should focus on ensuring the public has access to alternative energy sources that do not cause social and environmental impacts and do not violate human rights, reassessing power purchase planning assumptions – including as related to the country’s electricity reserves – to determine appropriate criteria for negotiations on new power purchase agreements that is mindful of the Thai public;
- Relevant government agencies should oversee state enterprises and Thai investors to ensure that they are conducting business in line with human rights standards. Specifically, for the provision of public services by state enterprises, including electricity, human rights risk and impact assessments should be carried out in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and as specified in the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights. In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (SEC) and the Department of Rights and Liberties Protection under the Ministry of Justice should take the necessary measures to ensure that the business operations of the developers of all four proposed projects — all of which are registered in Thailand — comprehensively uphold human rights principles including but not limited to the UNGPs from the outset.
Now after having received unequivocal recommendations from the NHRC, the Thai Government has an opportunity to act before it is too late. Crucially, all four dams to which the NHRC is bringing attention are still in the planning stages. Any initial negotiations for purchasing of power, as well as business deals getting underway for construction need not move forward. The evidence speaks for itself — the first hydropower project on the mainstream Mekong, the Xayaburi Dam, is already taking a severe toll on the livelihoods of riparian communities and riverine ecology with no realistic mitigation, redress or reparative measures in sight. Meanwhile, Thailand already has a margin of approximately 40% excess in electricity reserves.
In the face of the climate crisis, we have also witnessed how unpredictable extreme weather incidents such as extended droughts and flash floods are becoming more frequent, impacting reliability of hydropower generation and increasing risks on riparian communities. Meanwhile, comprehensive studies of the carbon emissions from dams provide clear indications that potent greenhouse gasses are produced during the construction of concrete dam walls, during the filling of reservoirs as debris of inundated lands rots, as well as from eutrophication of the water and degassing at the turbines over the years of operation, while destroying the natural carbon sequestration processes of flowing river ecosystems. Damming the Mekong River is not a low-carbon energy solution but rather a highly resource intensive venture which has no place in a just energy transition.
Coming to the conclusion that these dams are not needed and that plans need to be permanently withdrawn should not be in question. What remains to be seen is whether the staff of relevant state agencies and ultimately, those in the Prime Minister’s office, will take the NHRC recommendations to heart — upholding their stated commitment to the UNGPs, moving forward with courage to abrogate any further discussions over these projects and taking a clear position in favor of the intergenerational rights of Mekong communities in Thailand and beyond.