ABSTRACT
On 22 November 2011, Mrs Chea Dara committed suicide by jumping off a bridge in the centre of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital (Licadho, 2011). Although she was leaving behind a husband and two children, her despair over the long-running dispute with a local development company who had illegally evicted her from her house and home in the centre of the city had become too much. Despite four years of advocacy, support from Cambodian civil society, international media and diplomatic and donor interventions –nothing was able to counter the power of the senator-tycoon who owned the company which had taken her land.
