Vitit Muntarbhorn
Vitit Muntarbhorn is an international human rights expert and professor of law at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
He has been involved in various UN activities and has served as an expert or consultant with the OHCHR, UNHCR, UNDP, FAO, UNICEF, UNESCO, the WHO and the
United Nations University.
Biography
Muntarbhorn, born in November 1952, was educated at Oxford and Free University of Brussels, and was called to the Bar in England before going on to lecture in law at various universities in Austria, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Switzerland and Thailand.He served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography from 1990–1994. In 1994, he coedited with C. Taylor a paper on human rights in Thailand. In 2004, he was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education. He was involved in the elaboration of the Yogyakarta Principles on LGBT rights.
In 2018, he was recipient of the Bonham Centre Award from the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies. He also was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Posts
North Korea
Muntarbhorn was nominated to the position of United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Democratic People's Republic of Korea from 2004 until 2010. Despite North Korea's repeatedly rejected his requests for meetings, he produced multiple reports regarding the situation of human rights in North Korea.*
Ivory Coast
In 2011, Muntarbhorn was the Chair of the International Commission of Inquiry on the Ivory Coast, which also included Reine Alapini-Gansou and Suliman Ali Baldo.Syria
From 2012 until 2016 Muntarbhorn was one of the Commissioners of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. The Commission produced various reports investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity. In 2016, Muntarbhorn stepped down when the UNHRC designated him the first UN Independent Expert on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity
In his first report Muntarbhorn identified six key underpinnings for the mandate of the Independent Expert:- the decriminalization of consensual same-sex relations and of gender identity and expression;
- effective anti-discrimination measures
- the legal recognition of gender identity
- destigmatization linked with depathologization
- sociocultural inclusion; and
- education with empathy.