BANGKOK — 16 June 2026, Thailand has appointed two foreign legal experts — a South African and a German, both former presidents of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea — to its conciliation team in the ongoing maritime boundary dispute with Cambodia under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The Foreign Ministry named German jurist Rüdiger Wolfrum and South African maritime law expert Albert Hoffman as Thailand’s conciliators.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow announced the appointments after a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, saying the ministry had carefully selected both experts. He added that their credentials and experience made them well regarded in the field.
Sihasak himself will lead Thailand’s negotiating delegation, with Ambassador to Kuwait Songchai Chaipattiyuth serving as deputy chief.
Cambodia has already named its own team, with Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn serving as agent for the proceedings, and Danish diplomat Peter Taksøe-Jensen and French academic Jean-Marc Thouvenin as its conciliators.
Under the UNCLOS compulsory conciliation process, each side nominates two conciliators. Once both panels are filled, the two sides have one month to agree on a fifth member to serve as chair before formal talks can begin.
Sihasak stressed that the conciliation commission is not a court, and its role is to support — not decide — how disputes should be resolved. He said Thailand wants the panel’s mandate confined initially to maritime boundary delimitation and continental shelf demarcation.
Cambodia has pushed for joint development areas to be included in the discussions, but Sihasak said that was premature. He argued the overlapping claims must first be clearly defined before any discussion of shared resource development beneath the seabed.
When asked who would decide if the two sides disagreed on Cambodia’s proposals, Sihasak said the conciliation panel would need to weigh in, while reiterating that resolving the maritime boundary question clearly should come first.