Our Mission
The core mission of the Community Legal Education Center
(CLEC) is to build robust legal empowerment for vulnerable communities, youths,
women, and human rights defenders who are working on and heavily affected by
Land and Natural Resources (LNR) issues. We work tirelessly to ensure that
these individuals can secure unfettered access to justice, paving the way for
truly inclusive development across the nation.
Through platforms like the Cambodia Community Paralegal
Network, this mission is translated directly into grassroots action. We
actively support programs designed to strengthen legal empowerment by
increasing the active participation of the communities who heavily depend on
land and natural resources, as well as the local activists and community-based
paralegals who protect them. By enhancing the capacity of our target
communities, we enable them to confidently access dispute resolution mechanisms
for LNR issues. Our goal is to facilitate fair and just resolutions for those
affected, including securing appropriate compensation from development projects
that negatively impact their local livelihoods.
Furthermore, our mission is deeply intertwined with
advancing environmental justice across the region. We are profoundly committed
to groundbreaking initiatives, such as the campaign for the Draft ASEAN
Declaration on Environmental Rights (ADER), which aims to secure the
fundamental right to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment across
Southeast Asia. To achieve this, our mission mandates that we advocate for
three essential pillars of environmental justice: access to environmental
information, meaningful public participation in environmental decision-making,
and guaranteed access to justice and effective remedies in environmental
matters.
By equipping our network of dedicated frontline defenders with the necessary legal frameworks, ongoing education, and collaborative mediation tools, we ensure that our mission to protect and empower Cambodia's most vulnerable populations is actively realized every single day.
