In 2022, the Myanmar Junta enacted the new Law on Organisation Registration, repealing the previous Registration of Organisation Law 2014. This law regulates the registration of NGOs and INGOs. It affects, primarily, the latter. With the new law, at least 40% of the executive membership of an INGO must be made up of Myanmar citizens. Furthermore, it also expands the requirements an INGO must meet in order to operate in the country, such as obtaining approval of the relevant authorities regarding its intended programmes and activities. Observers believe that the law is part of the Junta’s attempt to restrict CSOs’ advocacy on human rights and reimplement the “4 cuts strategy” to undermine ethnic militias by cutting their access to food, funds, information and recruits. In this podcast episode, [name] talks to Asia Centre about the impact that the Law on Organisation Registration has for Myanmar CSOs’ advocacy on human rights.

Thyn Zar Oo is a Resident Scholar at The Public Law Center (TPLC) at the Tulane University School of Law. Oo is the Co-Founder and Program Director of the Public Legal Aid Network (The PLAN) in Myanmar (Burma). With background in Industrial and Labor Relations, Project Administrations, Access to Justice and Rule of Law, Oo had more than twenty five years of private and public sector legal experience in Myanmar and Asia-Pacific.

This podcast episode is part of the Foreign Interference Laws in Southeast Asia series, in partnership with the Japan NGO Centre for International Cooperation. To learn more about foreign interference laws, read Foreign Interference Laws in Southeast Asia: Deepening the Shrinkage of Civic Space.