Chantha Muth

1999 Advocate Chantha Muth is a Cambodian national. He is currently working for Memphis-Shelby County School as Special Education Assistant in the State of Tennessee, United States. Meanwhile, he continues to act as a focal point with diplomatic community at large on behalf of Honorable Kem Sokha, leader of Cambodia’s largest opposition party Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) who was convicted to imprisonment for 27 years for a fabricated conspiracy theory with the United States in an attempt to overthrow Cambodian government. 

He was former Director of Cabinet of Honorable Mr. Kem Sokha, leader of Cambodia’s largest opposition party CNRP, and was a member of the CNRP Steering Committee that was unconstitutionally dissolved by the Supreme Court in November 2017 with an explicit attempt to seize power from democratically elected opposition. I was Director of Cabinet of the First Vice President of the Cambodia’s National Assembly with the rank of Secretary of State (Deputy Minister) and also chief Cabinet of the leader of the Minority Group of the National Assembly of Cambodia within the National Assembly with the rank of Secretary of State. From 2006-2010, I was the Director of Cabinet and spokesperson of His Royal Highest Prince Norodom Ranariddh, President of Norodom Ranariddh Party (NRP) who was former First Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1993-1997 and President of the National Assembly from 1999 to 2006, and also chief cabinet of HRH Prince Norodom Ranariddh, President of the Supreme Privy Council to His Majesty The King of Cambodia from 2008 to 2021. 

Before joining active politics, he worked for over 15 years with several United Nations Agencies, including United Nations Border Relief Operations (UNBRO), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as Protection Associate, United Nations Transitional Authorities in Cambodia (UNTAC) as Human Rights Officer, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR) in Cambodia as Human Rights Associate, and United Nations/African Union Hybrid Operations in Darfur, North Sudan (UNAMID) as Human Rights Officer-cum-Capacity Building Coordinator. He also served another nine years with different international organizations namely National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), a U.S. based non-profit organization as Senior Program Manager, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva-based International Organization (ICRC) as Field Officer, The Khmer Post Media Center, a nonprofit organization based in Long Beach, California, United States as Vice President, Vice Chairperson of domestic elections monitoring organization NICFEC, Editor-in-Chief of a printing media outlet Khmer Amatak, General-Secretary of an international corporation. Apart from this, he has had extensive international experience in elections monitoring and observation where he observed elections in Indonesia, Thailand, Palestine, etc. He served as an English teacher with Don Bosco Technical College. He was a former refugee at the Cambodian-Thai Border for over 12 years (1979-1992) where he fled the Vietnamese invasion and occupation over Cambodia. 

He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law, and a master’s degree in political science. Furthermore, he has possessed a wide range of professional experiences in politics, laws, international human rights, humanitarian and refugees laws, democracy, rule of law, diplomacy and international relations, civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), media and journalism, training and education, investigation, elections, negotiation, legislative drafting, lobby and advocacy, reporting, etc.

Submitted by Chantha Muh to ISHR on May 12, 2026