Sor.Rattanamanee Polkla
Lawyer and Executive Coordinator, Community Resource Centre
Sor.Rattanamanee Polkla’s career spans the past twenty years of public interest lawyering in Thailand; she has been involved in many of its most significant recent cases. In 2010, after working for years as an independent public interest lawyer, Sor, together with Prashant Singh, co-founded the Community Resource Centre (CRC) – a non-government organization working with communities impacted by development projects.
As lawyer and executive coordinator of CRC, Sor. Leads the legal team to work on the centre’s caseson. Her cases are across Thailand and trans-boundary cases in Mekong region. Most are related to businessman, human rights and the environment. Sor. is also the coordinator of the Mekong Legal Network (MLN).
Today the CRC is a well-known and prominent registered non-governmental organisation. To date, CRC has taken on over 200 cases from over 30 communities, regarding issues that include mining projects, land rights, industrial pollution, thermo power plants, biomass, irrigation schemes, hydropower, pollution cases. CRC has conducted case trans-boundary impact, including in the Mekong region. Through the work of its lawyers, CRC has successfully helped set legal precedent in public interest cases involving human rights, community rights, environmental harm and environmental defenders.
“As public interest lawyers, we are working for the people. That’s why we’re called the Community Resource Centre.”