Pursuing accountability under authoritarian rule: Thailand's National Human Rights Commission and community struggles for justice

Rising authoritarianism in Southeast Asia and globally underscores the need for geographers to critically interrogate this concept, its uneven effects, and how it is negotiated and challenged. Following Glasius, I understand authoritarianism as a set of practices that sabotage accountability and disable access to information and voice. Civil society actors and residents have long appealed to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT) to press for accountability. However, Thailand's 2014 coup and subsequent military rule restricted the NHRCT's capacity to conduct incisive investigations into human rights violations. Drawing on empirical fieldwork, I examine the state-led Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed Yuam River water diversion in Northwest Thailand. The NHRCT is investigating affected residents' claims that the EIA lacked meaningful participation. Alongside diminishing political space under military rule, I show how a series of legislative, constitutional, and policy changes curtailed civil society participation in NHRCT investigations. In this way, authoritarianism not only erodes civil and political rights, but the organisations designed to protect those rights and hold state and corporate actors accountable. Nevertheless, civil society actors and residents continue to appeal to the NHRCT in struggles over rights and resources, alongside diverse strategies including counter-knowledge production. In this case, the NHRCT investigation strategically delayed development and enabled residents to demand accountability from state actors in ways that were occluded during the EIA. This paper shows how struggles against authoritarianism are at once struggles for accountability, access to information, and inclusion in development decision-making. • A focus on practices reveals how authoritarianism unfolds and is challenged in specific places and times. • Authoritarianism targets organisations designed to hold state and private actors accountable. • Military rule limited the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand's capacity to support justice struggles. • Struggles against authoritarianism are struggles for accountability and over whose voices count.