Legal Research Consultant

Term of Reference (ToR) 

1. Background

The Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Organization (CIPO) was established on June 30, 2014 and registered with the Ministry of Interior (SOR CHOR NOR No. 1352). It was initially known as the Indigenous Peoples (IP)-led and managed organization that combines the most advanced knowledge regarding IPs (both locally and globally) and Cambodian society with the ability to respond and creatively address the needs of the IPs in Cambodia. Our vision aims for IPs to have self-determination on development and conservation within the multi-cultural society of Cambodia

In its five-year SP 2021-2025, CIPO re-focuses its strategies for influencing and advocacy, strengthening the collective leadership of the ICs, consolidating the representational role of IPs, strengthening the livelihood of the ICs, and building the credibility of the organization.

Therefore, we received a project from DanchurchAid Cambodia on Land Access and Protection of Indigenous and Natural Resources (LAPNIR). The project goal is to contribute to the protection of land rights and continued access and availability of natural resources for target populations. Consequently, we are looking for a legal research consultant to produce the research on Indigenous peoples’ rights to land and natural resources use and management, with the following objectives, roles, and responsibilities:

2. Overall objective:

The overall objective is to conduct legal research & analysis and/or produce policy briefs on the recommendations of Indigenous peoples’ rights to land management, natural resources use, and management issues.

Specific objective:

Objective 1: To conduct comprehensive legal research on the roles and challenges of Indigenous communities in protecting their land and natural resource management.

3. Tasks and Responsibilities

3.1. Tasks and Responsibilities of the CIPO

1. Meeting with consultants before signing the contract to review and approve the research proposal including outline, a questionnaire with quantitative and quality, methodology, clarify the target community, key interviewer, and research team as well as role and responsibility. (the consultant needs to be prepared and present their plan)
2. Provide the list of key interviews and propose the target community to be researched and interviewed or documents that may have for the consultant to review and analyze.
3. Travel along with the consultant to monitor and engage with the target community if needed.
4. Provide ongoing input and feedback on the process of legal research/policy brief to ensure the documents is reflected to the objective of the research for better use.
5. Support consultant to organize the consultation with CIPA members to provide feedback and input on the draft.
6. Provide the final input to the consultant for finalizing the report, video, and song and release the payment to the consultant based on the service fee and term of payment.

3.2. Tasks and Responsibility of Consultants:

1. Meeting with CIPO before signing the contract to present the proposal of the research including the outline/format, questionnaire with quantitative and quality methodology, clarify the target community, key interviewer, and research team as well as role and responsibility. (the consultant needs to be prepared and present their plan)
2. Desk review or collect the secondary data related to land and natural resources used and management practice and challenges including national law/policies/customary law and practice/cases study including review of the documents of IPs community inside of CPA, CF, CFi, Legal Identity, Self-Identification, CLT, other…)
3. Produce and submission and present the final outline/format of the report, and questionnaire with quantitative and quality, methodology (research tool/Kobo Toolbox/ Survey 123, Google Form, etc.), clarify the target community, list of key interviewers, and research team to CIPO and CIPA team (CIWA/CIYA/…) for comment and feedback,
4. Coordinate with the Ministry of Justice or provincial court (administrator of the court) to collect the existing data on IPs issues from the six provinces that they have
5. Field data collection of target villages assigned by the LAPNIR project based on proposed target communities and provinces provided for data collection, data entry, data analysis, and drafting of the report through:
   1. Meet with IPs Lawyer team/ Non-IPs Lawyer from R & L, LICADO, ADHOC, CCHR, and Head of Lawyer in 6 different provinces to get all the documents
   2. Meet with the key elders/youth/women/ Indigenous peoples with disability for an interview of their knowledge and compile the case documents that they may have
   3. Meet with the local NGOs, partners, local authorities, and stakeholders that link to the objectives.
   4. Visited the community farming/affected target to documents.
6. Presentation of the draft finding result of research to the CIPO team and CIPA members (CIYA/CIWA/CIPA…) for comment and feedback to consolidate into the final report/video/scrip
7. Final submission of legal research & analysis and policy brief with full consultation and consent from CIPO based on the deadline in both Khmer and English of the report.
8. Scope of Research

The scope of research will be focused on the specific Indigenous rights to land and natural resources use and management covered in six provinces such as Mondulkiri, Kompong Thom, Stung Treng, Ratanakiri, Kratei, and Preah Vihear with indigenous Kui, Bunong, Kroeung, Tompoun, Jarai and Brao.

5. Methodology (legal research consultant are available to use their methods for researching the field)

Step1. Need to Produce the legal research while undertaking the research by following the methodology

1. Pre-meeting between CIPO organization and consultant to understand the objective, expectation, and the process of research.
2. Collective/compile related documents from Ministries, courts, community, and lawyers for desk review and produce the outline of the report
3. Develop or design a questionnaire/research tool for researching with quantitative and qualitative data collection can be used the tool of (Kobo Toolbox, Survey 123, Google Form, etc.)
4. Produce the list of key interviewers, target and team for comment and feedback and schedule or timetable for field data collective includes individual and focus group discussion.
5. Field research in community target based on the provided schedule with the Indigenous community, local NGOs, partners, local authorities, and stakeholders at their farm/affected/office/house, for documentation/filming/photo taking,
6. Data entry and data analyses drafting the visual
7. Organize the meeting/workshop to present the draft finding research results to (CIPO and CIPA).
8. Consolidate all the input and comments from the meeting and workshop into the final draft report.
9. Submit the second draft research report and final report to the CIPO organization based on the

deadline in both Khmer and English.

Step2. After finalizing the legal research, the consultant will have a meeting with the song and video producer team for inputs into the Khmer language/and IPs languages ( Bunong/Kui/Jarai/Tompoun) with prior consent from CIPO.

6. Expectation Outputs

Expected Output 1:      Produced 01 comprehensive legal research & analysis and legal policy analysis brief of Indigenous knowledge related to their land use and management (also rotational farming) and the challenges/issues that Indigenous communities face on their land and natural resource management.  

Expected Output 2:     Publication of the documentation

Expected Output 3:     Support the organization to disseminate with the community, network, and

relevant stakeholders for learning based on their listed contacts.

7. Timeframe

8. Key Target Focus for interview

• Indigenous Peoples (IPs) includes
  • Indigenous Elders
  • Indigenous Youth
  • Indigenous Women (IW),
  • Indigenous LGBTIQ,
  • Indigenous Peoples with disability
  • Local authority, Police Posts,
  • community councils,
  • NGOs partners
  • IPs Lawyer
  • Non_IPs Lawyer from L & R, Lichdo, Adhoc, CCHR and others
  • Provincial Court
  • Ministry of Justice
  • Community Forest (CF), Community Fisheries (CFi), Community Protected Area (CPA), Collective Land Title (CLT), Self-Identification (SI), and Legal Identity (LI).

9. Target Village:

10. Consultant Team:

The consultant team should be composed of an expert legal researcher team.

11. Standards of service:
12. Consultants must provide all services quickly, promptly, and attentively, and with the appropriate skills and experience in the field of documentation.
13. The consultant will keep all the documents confidential between CIPO and consultant only.
14. CIPO reserved the rights over the documents (as the copyrights).
15. The consultant cannot use the documents without prior and informed consent from CIPO
16. Service fee and term of payment:

The total cost of the service fee for the consultant is USD 4,565.00 including withholding tax. This cost covers the consultant fee, travel, and associated costs to be paid as a lump sum in the whole process of producing the legal research.

The payment of the service fee is made in four stages:

Remark: The payment will be made upon the submission of an invoice for each payment from consultant

13. Requirements
14. Holding a bachelor’s degree/or master’s degree in law, or another related field.
15. Have a good background of understanding, knowledge, culture, social and economic IPs and especially experience of at least 2-3 years working with indigenous communities and general situation.
16. At least 5 years of working experience in legal research, legal analysis, produce the policy brief, and advocacy particularly regarding IPs rights to Land and NRM.
17. Have experience in script writing, and leading to produce the documentation.
18. Priority is given to women, indigenous peoples, and peoples with disabilities with qualifications.
19. knowledgeable on indigenous legal frameworks and customary rule.
20. Be flexible and open minded.
21. Have a good relationship and be friendly.
22. Be able to communicate in Khmer, English, or an Indigenous language

Interested individual consultants are invited to submit their application (expression of interest) along with an updated CV, documents, and expected daily rate of consultancy to info@cipocambodia.org no later than 17:00hrs, on 30th December 2024. Please indicate “Application Legal Research Consultant” in your email subject line.