Ms. Ursula von der Leyen

President

European Commission

Brussels, Belgium

Mr. Maroš Šefčovič

Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security European Commission

European Commission

Brussels, Belgium

27 September 2025

Re: Trade Must Advance, not Undermine, Human Rights

Dear President Ursula von der Leyen and Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič,

In a few days, the European Union and Thailand will resume negotiations for a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA). For many Thai citizens, this meeting in Brussels symbolises far more than market access or tariff lines. It is a test of whether the EU’s promise to place democracy, the rule of law, and human rights at the heart of its foreign policy will be honored when commercial interests are at stake. The EU’s own foundational treaties—Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 207 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union—leave no ambiguity: trade policy must advance, not undermine, these universal values.

Democratic Backsliding in Thailand

Yet in Thailand, these universal values are eroding. After the 2023 election, the winning party—having secured support from other parties representing approximately 70% of all votes—was blocked by the unelected, military-appointed Senate from forming a government. Within a year, the Constitutional Court dissolved the winning party for seeking to amend the lèse-majesté law, while 44 of its Members of Parliament who sponsored the bill are at risk of being permanently banned from politics for alleged serious breaches of “ethical standards.” The same Court has removed two prime ministers in as many years. These interventions—rooted in the 2017 military-drafted Constitution and reinforced by the criminalization of peaceful expression—have chilled public debate, undermined the separation of powers, and eroded public confidence that electoral outcomes will be respected. Despite sustained civil society campaigns, reform of the problematic 2017 Constitution has repeatedly failed: since 2020, almost 30 amendment bills have been rejected by Parliament. These developments cast serious doubts on whether FTA safeguards would be implemented.

Suppression of Civil and Political Rights

Since the emergence of the youth-led pro-democracy movement in 2020, nearly 2,000 people—including more than 280 children under the age of 18—have faced criminal charges simply for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Among the laws most frequently weaponized is the lèse-majesté law, which carries the penalty of three to 15 years in prison—the same punishment as manslaughter. Thai courts have stretched the law to penalize peaceful public opinion polls about the Thai monarchy, wearing traditional Thai dress, and even quoting UN experts’ opinions critical of the law at peaceful assemblies. Since 2020, nearly 300 people have been charged under this law, which has seen a conviction rate of nearly 90%. In January 2024, a Thai activist was sentenced to 50 years’ imprisonment under the lèse-majesté law for posting clips about the Thai monarchy on Facebook. Mr. Arnon Nampa, a prominent human rights lawyer, has been sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for peacefully advocating for democratic and monarchy reforms. Meanwhile, nearly 50 political prisoners have been deprived of their freedoms simply for standing up for civil liberties and pluralism.

The European Parliament has expressed concerns about these abuses since June 2023. Most recently, in March 2025, it “call[ed] on the [Thai] government to amend or repeal Article 112 and other repressive laws to guarantee the right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and political participation.” Moreover, it instructed the European Commission to “leverage FTA negotiations to press Thailand to reform repressive laws, particularly the lese-majesty law, [and] release political prisoners.”

Challenges to Labor Rights and Corporate Responsibility

In addition to the violations of civil and political rights, including the forced deportation of 40 Uyghurs to China in breach of the non-refoulement principle, Thailand faces systemic labor rights challenges. Hundreds of thousands of Thai and migrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation, retaliation against labor leaders, systematic underpayment of wages, and the spread of precarious informal work. For instance, in 2022 Burmese migrant workers in the border province were reportedly forced to work up to 99 hours a week for minimum pay, while employers confiscated their documents. These abuses are made possible by weak governance and accountability, creating a climate where corporations commit supply chain-linked violations in their pursuit of expansion.

Furthermore, landgrabbing and environmental degradation have decimated communities, while those who resist—especially environmental rights defenders—are routinely silenced through judicial harassment and abusive SLAPP lawsuits. In September 2024, the director of the BioThai Foundation faced a defamation lawsuit from Charoen Pokphand Foods after releasing a public report linking the company’s aquaculture operations to the spread of invasive blackchin tilapia, which disrupted local fisheries, threatened native species, and harmed the livelihoods of small-scale fishermen. Women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in Thailand have historically been disproportionately impacted by this practice. According to Protection International, over 570 grassroots WHRDs in Thailand faced legal charges as of December 2022.

Concerns regarding Intellectual Property Policies within the FTA

While Thailand’s human rights and labor challenges require urgent attention, the FTA must avoid introducing TRIPS-plus intellectual property provisions. Measures like patent term extensions and data exclusivity would extend monopolies and hinder timely access to affordable generic medicines, inflating prices and straining public health budgets. The FTA must also exclude UPOV-style rules as they tend to restrict farmers’ age-old practices of saving and exchanging seed, raise input costs, and narrow on-farm biodiversity, undermining climate resilience and food security. In other words, TRIPS-plus provisions and UPOV-style rules would weaken compulsory-licensing regime and other TRIPS safeguards, slow local production, and shift policy space away from public health and rural livelihoods.

Recommendations

We urge the EU to act on the following recommendations to ensure accountability and protection of rights.

Ensuring civil society participation, monitoring, and compliance

Incorporate binding Trade and Sustainable Development chapters, including mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence across supply chains.

Establish an independent monitoring mechanism and an independent complaints mechanism, providing affected citizens and other stakeholders with effective recourse to remedy and a tool to address potential negative impacts on human rights, notably through the application of the state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism to the TSD chapter.

Ensure that a comprehensive and inclusive Sustainability Impact Assessment is conducted as part of the FTA negotiations with Thailand, with meaningful participation from Thai civil society.Establish an annual independent review assessing trade, investment, human rights, and sustainability impacts, involving civil society, government agencies, and independent experts.
Ensure the FTA has state-to-state mechanisms for enforcement, accessible complaint channels, and clear penalties (e.g., suspension of trade privileges or fines) for non-compliance with human rights, labor, or environmental obligations.

Protection of civil and political rights as well as human rights defenders

Request the immediate release of political prisoners and urge the Thai government to grant amnesty to all victims of political prosecution, including those charged under the lèse-majesté law.
Urge the government of Thailand to drop all charges against children and individuals who exercised their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly since 2006.
Encourage a democratic, people-centered constitutional reform process in Thailand—built on meaningful, inclusive public participation and free from undue restrictions.

Protection of labors’ and migrant workers’ rights

Establish a clear roadmap to ratification of ILO Conventions 87 (guaranteeing workers the right to organize and form trade unions freely) and 98 (ensuring workers’ rights to collective bargaining and protection against anti-union discrimination).
Require comprehensive reform of Thailand’s labor laws—specifically the Labor Relations Act and the Labor Protection Act—in consultation with trade unions and labor groups.
Implement a formal supply chain accountability mechanism for unions and workers to resolve labor violations involving EU companies or supply chains to the EU.
Align FTA labor and corporate accountability provisions with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, including effective remedy, gender protections, and corporate liability mechanisms

Protecting public health, food security, and biodiversity

Avoid the inclusion of TRIPS-plus provisions that can potentially block or delay access to generic medicines, explicitly safeguarding public health flexibilities like compulsory licensing.
Include clear provisions banning the patenting of plants, animals, and biological processes.
Reject enforcement of UPOV 1991 standards that restrict farmers’ rights to save, exchange, and develop seeds and protect farmers’ rights under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA).

As longstanding advocates of human rights and democracy, the EU can leverage the FTA to spotlight these abuses and ensure the respect of rule of law, democracy, and human rights, and ensuring that they remain central to the agreement.

Signed By:

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF)
ENLAWTHAI Foundation
Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)
ETO Watch
Focus on the Global South
Fortify Rights
FORUM-ASIA
Freedom Bridge
Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF)
Human Rights Lawyers Association (HRLA)
Human Rights Watch
iLAW
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
Migrant Working Group
Protection International
Solidarity Center
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR)
Union for Civil Liberty