Thailand

Thailand's history reaches back 700 years to the Sukothai and Ayutthaya. Society, organized according to the law of Ayutthaya during early Bangkok period (Rattanakosin), was characterized by a caste system. Scholars normally term this the sakdina system, consisting of chao (royal family members), khunnang (high-ranking officials), and phrai (commoners subject to corvée labor either to their feudal lords, namely the chao, khunnang, or king). Sakdina classified and marked each social category by the amount of land people could hold. With an abundance of land and a small population, issues revolved over the control not of land but of people. A patron and client relationship existed between commoners and their feudal lords. The opportunities for individuals to move up the hierarchy were extremely limited.

Administrative and legal reforms during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V, 1868–1910) were a turning point in Thai history, leading to the termination of the sakdina system. Social scientists and historians have analyzed the context in which the king launched these reforms and the impact they had on Thai society in political, economic, and social terms. The king introduced a centralized administrative and judicial system in Bangkok, and authorities promulgated several legal codes over the following 40 years. Some scholars, such as Chaiyan and Thongchai, view this process as Bangkok's expansionism or the formation of the Siam state, which until then had consisted of numerous townships with local rulers.

Officials introduced a legal system of land demarcation, land registration, and land documents from the end of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. This period also saw an expansion in rice exports, with the ruling or landowning class the major beneficiaries and the peasantry the losers. These changes marked Thailand's transition to a system of modern laws.

The formal laws enacted by the state were often different from customary laws and practices, for example, in terms of the land tenure system, inheritance practice, and dispute resolution. As David Engel has shown, compliance with and enforcement of laws concerning the maintenance of peace and order, such as those controlling crime, were higher than with those laws that conflicted with local people's traditional ways of life, such as gambling and liquor-making laws. With globalization and economic and social development, formal statutes today constitute the [Page 1478]main body of law instead of customs. However, some local customs about natural resource management still persist, such as the system of people's irrigation in northern Thailand and community forests. The Thai Constitution, promulgated in 1997, gave express recognition to a community right to participate in the conservation, management, and utilization of natural resources. Nevertheless, Thailand has yet to enact legislation to implement this principle.

Absolute monarchy ended in 1932, and democracy progressed slowly during the next 40 years, with intermittent military rule. The students' movement, which ousted the military in 1973, brought about a democracy that lasted less than three years and ended in the massacre of demonstrators, mostly students, in 1976. Yet, several laws aiming at social justice were introduced during this brief period, which include the laws on land reform and the establishment of labor unions. The 1974 Constitution provided for equality between men and women for the first time.

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