Ignoring the Joint Boundary Commission Puts Thailand on a Risky Path

By Sala Traju Association

Boundary settlement is not an event but a process. Before a boundary inherited from history can be treated as a settled international boundary, it must pass through an agreed mechanism. In the Cambodia–Thailand case, earlier Franco–Siamese boundary commissions produced foundational maps and records that continue to carry legal significance. The Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) was created to carry forward that inherited work, consolidating existing data, maps, and markers rather than reopening first principles. Its role is continuity, turning historical boundary outcomes into durable stability through technical and legal process.

For more than two decades, Cambodia and Thailand have relied on such a process: the JBC. Established under the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding on the Survey and Demarcation of Land Boundary, the JBC was designed to transform a historically sensitive frontier into a technical, verifiable, and peaceful undertaking. It exists precisely so that soldiers do not decide sovereignty.

Today, that process is being choked off.

This approach is not unique to Cambodia and Thailand. Around the world, sensitive land boundaries are managed through joint technical and legal commissions, precisely because they allow disputes to be handled through evidence, verification, and shared procedure rather than unilateral action. The Joint Boundary Commission reflects this standard international practice, not an exceptional demand, but a widely accepted method for maintaining border stability.

The JBC is not merely a political bargaining forum. It is a technical, legal and negotiation-based mechanism, designed to resolve boundary questions through joint survey, agreed data, and mutually accepted procedures. As Article II of the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding makes clear, the Joint Boundary Commission derives its authority from technical and legal work, joint surveys, agreed maps, and boundary markers, not from pressure, rhetoric, or military posturing. When this process is respected, disputes remain manageable. When it is bypassed or ignored, the only alternatives are escalation or internationalization, neither of which serves stability.

This is why the JBC matters so deeply now.

Cambodia has repeatedly signaled its readiness to engage through the JBC to reduce tension and prevent further incidents. The mechanism is there. The mandate is there. And the obligation to settle disputes peacefully through consultation and negotiation is there. What is missing is Thailand’s political will to activate it.

Instead, Thailand has chosen a different path.

Military posturing has replaced technical and legal dialogue. Security rhetoric has displaced legal process. Even more troubling, Thailand’s current interim governing situation has coincided with delays in the work of the Joint Boundary Commission, raising questions of mandate and continuity. Under the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding, article 2, the Commission’s authority depends on appointments made by the respective governments and on the stability of those appointments over time. When a government operates in a transitional or limited-capacity role, participation in the Commission risks becoming nominal rather than effective, leaving the mechanism formally intact but functionally stalled.

The JBC does not require friendship. It requires seriousness. It does not demand immediate agreement. It demands presence, procedure, and restraint. By allowing the JBC to languish while escalating militarily, Thailand sends a dangerous signal: that when process becomes inconvenient, pressure becomes acceptable.

This is not merely a bilateral concern. It is a regional one.

Southeast Asia’s hard-won stability rests on a shared understanding that disputes are managed, not magnified. That principle was reaffirmed in the Kuala Lumpur Joint Declaration of 26 October 2025, which explicitly underscored bilateral mechanisms, including the JBC, as the proper avenue for peaceful dispute management. To undermine these mechanisms is to undermine confidence far beyond the immediate frontier.

There is also a deeper risk. When one side blocks negotiation entirely, it forces the dispute out of the realm of cooperative management and into arenas that are far less forgiving. Prolonged refusal to negotiate does not freeze a dispute; it internationalizes it, politicizes it, and hardens positions on all sides. That outcome serves no one, least of all civilians living along the border, who pay the price when diplomacy fails.

Thailand still has a choice.

Reactivating the JBC would not signal weakness. It would signal maturity. Assigning commissioners, convening meetings, and allowing technical and legal work to resume would immediately lower the temperature and restore predictability. Even limited confidence-building steps, joint verification, agreed no-movement zones, regular communication between local commanders, would demonstrate good faith.

Pressure, however, is already building.

The international community is watching not only what is said, but what is refused. Blocking negotiation while asserting force invites scrutiny, not silence. In a region that has consistently defended peaceful settlement as a core norm, disengagement carries reputational cost.

Borders endure when institutions do. The JBC is one such institution. It was built to absorb tension so that conflict does not have to.

Thailand should reopen the table, not tomorrow, not conditionally, but now.

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