Activists and academics are urging the United Nations' Human Rights Council to make the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) -- in which the human rights records of its member states are reviewed every five years -- more focused and binding, before calling on the Thai government to be more transparent about following the review's recommendations.
The calls were made during a seminar organised by Amnesty International Thailand called "Human Rights! The Rise of Humanity", which was held on Wednesday to coincide with the live broadcast of the UPR at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
This year's review was Thailand's third, after its first review back in 2011.
In each review, three set of reports were heard for each state. The first comprised human rights concerns voiced by UN member states, while the second contained recommendations from other stakeholders, such as non-governmental organisations.
These reports were heard along with the state's own report on its human rights situation, which seminar participants said didn't paint an accurate picture of what was going on.
Montana Duangprapa, a legal officer for Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, said while the Thai government claims to protect children's rights in its report, it failed to mention that its protection of children does not cover their freedom of speech.
She said there are currently 223 children in police custody, in addition to the "hundreds of cases" involving minors as a result of the ongoing political unrest over the past three months. Twelve of these minors, she noted, were charged for violating Section 112, or the lese majeste law.
"It's quite obvious that the state is violating the rights of children, especially their freedom of expression. It was embarrassing that the [government's] representatives failed to mention the exact number of detained minors in its report -- they simply said there were an increasing number of minors in the legal system," she said.
She went on to say Thailand should have been honest and included the numbers in the report, as it would have formed a basis to improve its justice processes.
"A number of countries, such as Mexico, Austria, Finland, Belgium and the UK are urging Thailand to protect children's freedom of expression and their right to peaceful assembly," she said. "In addition, they are urging the government to amend Section 112 of the Criminal Code to better conform with Article 19 of the ICCPR [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]."
In response to the calls, the government's representative at the UPR session said Section 112 is intended to protect the Thai state, of which the monarch is at the centre of, and that the issue must be carefully discussed domestically.
A campaigner for Manushya Foundation and sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) expert Nada Chaiyajit, said she was delighted to see the weight many UN member states placed on LGBTQ+ rights in Thailand, before urging the government to better protect their rights.
At this year's UPR, Belgium, Canada, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Mexico and the Netherlands urged Thailand to ensure LGBTQ+ individuals are protected by the law. In addition, France also urged Thailand to revise its Civil and Commercial Code to ensure all citizens have the right to marry.
"It was the first but very important step towards the legal recognition of Thailand's LGBTQ+ individuals," she said, though she said the government should remember the commitments it made in following its previous UPRs.
Ms Nada pointed to the right to establishing a family for LGBTQ+ individuals, which has been discussed for at least eight years. The government even pledged to address the matter at the last UPR, but nothing has been done so far, she said.
That said, the campaigner urged the UNHCR to make the process more focused, with UN member states and non-government stakeholders giving out detailed recommendations which leaves no room for subjective interpretation from the Thai government.
"There needs to be a monitoring mechanism to ensure the Thai government does what it has pledged to do and whether their efforts are up to par," she said.
Vitit Muntarbhorn, an international human rights law expert from Chulalongkorn University, said while universal in nature, UPR is a very soft mechanism that isn't binding on its review subjects.
Mr Vitit suggested that Thailand accept the recommendations and use them to improve the country's processes.
He underscored the fact that since Thailand first UPR in 2011, the country has rejected many of the recommendations made by other UN members and stakeholders, adding when the government marked a recommendation as 'Noted', it was actually rejecting the suggestions.
"I want to see a decrease in the amount of report marked as 'Noted' by Thailand, because the more things are written off as 'Noted', the bigger the blind spot in society," he added.
In the first UPR cycle in 2011, out of the 200+ recommendations made by fellow UN member states, Thailand accepted 134 suggestions and rejected 38 which concerned the declaration of martial law, emergency decree and revision of Section 112.
In 2016, Thailand accepted 187 recommendations and rejected 62, among which were calls to be a part of the International Court of Justice and the international refugee convention.
It also struck down recommendations on the abolition of the death penalty, the military court, and freedom of expression reforms, including changes to the lese majeste law and rights to political assembly.
"While Thailand has rejected many recommendations in the past, some progress was ultimately made, including the abolition of the death penalty for some drug-related crimes and corruption. In my view, Thailand shouldn't reject too many recommendations in this cycle," he said.
Among the ones Mr Vitit urged Thailand to accept are calls to join the Rome Statute. "Acknowledging it will fill the gap in the Thai justice system."