Second day: Table Discussion1 – Academic visit – Table Discussion 2

11/1/08 FRIDAY




Today I woke up at 7 am and had breakfast, and then it was a time for table discussion. Table discussion is an activity to exchange the legal knowledge between countries. The topic that I was given is “wildlife Trafficking”. So my commission is to discuss and present about the problem of wildlife trafficking in Thailand to other delegates in my table group. In my group there are 17 people; 1 from Singapore, 3 from Philippines, 2 from Indonesia, 2 from Malaysia, 3 from Korea, 2 from Hong Kong and 4 from Thailand.

Anyway, I will tell you about what I presented them in the table discussion about “wildlife trafficking”. From my research I found that “wildlife trafficking” is the world’s third largest crime, which directly cause of losing biodiversity, many of them are extinct. Thailand, as a hot spot for illegal trade in Asia, wildlife trafficking is a big problem that we must concern. Many species are threatened and it us surprise that the center of wildlife trafficking is in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. Wild animals and wild plants are sold without fear of law, while the police officers cannot arrest all of the wildlife smugglers; therefore this problem become more serious.

From the three months survey of WWF Thailand, Forestry department and other related associations, found that the largest place where is wildlife trafficking occurs is “the weekend market” or we know as JJ market in Bangkok; especially in the pet zone, wild animals are sold as pets. Almost wildlife are from the north and the northeast of Thailand; where is a bountiful forest, some of them are from neighboring country. The wildlife traffickers in JJ market will set-up other shops; such as clothes shop or food stand to conceal what is their real purpose. They also have special and complex methods to avoid from the police, such as hiding animals, give the false information, counterfeit the license, or cite that they are raised animals. There are catalogs of wild animals and let the customer choose and appoint to get the animals later from their set-up shop. They do it as a cycle, there are persons who always help and report the trafficker to avoid from the inspection of the police.

The volunteered staff told that most of the wildlife traffickers have method that is more complex that make more difficult to detect. There are also groups of influential person or mafias support them, and the officials who have a duty to detect in the market are always the same person; therefore, it is easy to recognize them and they can hide their goods promptly.

From the detection, most of wildlife that we found is “birds”; they are birds, which are protected by the act of wildlife protection and preservation. In addition we found others wildlife such as rare turtle, alligator, snake, etc.

Moreover, there is a survey of customer’s opinions in JJ market about wildlife trafficking, we found that
- 58.8% know that there are protected animal are sold in the market, and still want to buy.
- 81.58 % do not know that the animals, which they are going to buy, are endangered species.
- 85.35 % do not know that buying the animal, which they are going to buy, is illegal.
- 79.60 % know that the number of wildlife in Thailand is decreasing.
- 62.50 % think that wildlife trafficking cannot be absolutely eliminated from the country.

From my research about the general view of wildlife trafficking in Thailand, I recognize that human is a disaster for animals and it makes me want to do something to help them. So, I decided to do this commission my best, because in the third part of table discussion, we can suggest the solutions that there’s a member from WSPN; the organization that work for the animal will join the discussion and bring our solutions to use as real. I hope that our solutions can help!




For the afternoon section, there was an academic visit to the parliament of Malaysia in the city. We were asked to wear black suit that make me look like a real lawyer! For the visiting, the parliament officers explained us about the parliament system of Malaysia and other information about Malaysia that quite boring and make many delegates felt sleepy, as well as I [ha ha]. Then it was a tea break, they treated us a local desserts, one of them is strange; it is sticky rice, which there is curry coconut on the top; it is taste was weird! Then we were brought to walk around the parliament, it is so big and beautiful! We took many pictures there. Then we backed to the hotel and prepared for the second part of table discussion. On the way backed to the hotel I chatted with delegates from Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea about law of their country. I found that my friend from Singapore love chewing gum, even it is prohibited in their country. He told that gum in Singapore is sold as a medicine for the people who have a problem with their teeth. Moreover to buy gums, they have to sign their name for that gum!!!

For the second table discussion, we discussed about the ways to solve the problem of wildlife trafficking that we will present to the officer who works with this problem. Anyway, now it is 2am already!!! Tomorrow there are workshop, symposium and table discussion three.

First Day: Malaysia, truly Asia

10 Jan 08

Today is the first day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We left Bangkok at 7.10 am and 10.15 we arrived at Kuala Lumpur [KL local time- time in Malaysia is faster than Thailand for an hour]. Our caretakers brought us from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to the Pearl International hotel. We arrived here quite early, so we had some free time to have lunch and prepare for welcoming party.

In the evening, there was a welcoming party. We were brought to the big shopping mall and took a ferry to the theme park. The ferry was amazing; it brought us from a small canal to the river outside through the water gate, which can descend the level of water. The scenery was beautiful, it amazed me a lot! We were the first group that arrived at the restaurant so we spend time to walk around and took pictures in the theme park. There are many interesting things, the thing that I like most is the ice factory. There are many carved ice-bricks, it was very cold inside but so beautiful, I did take many pictures!

Then, it was a party time. The theme for the party is “floral night”, so everyone dressed with flower-pattern outfit. I dressed with a brown dress and decorated with a rose pin, which look quite formal, I think I should dress with another colorful dress but it’s too late to think about it T-T. One of my senior decorated her hair with a big lily that was so beautiful.

For the dinner we were treated with local food in buffet style; it was Chinese-Muslim food, which quite strange for me but the taste was good. After dinner, there was Malaysia dancing show, which called “Saba dancing”, it quite similar with one of Thai dancing called “Laos-kra-tob-mai” that use bamboo sticks to tap in steps and let the dancers dance across them, but Saba dancing is more exciting with fast step. My caretaker told me that, In Malaysia there are two big state; Saba and Sarawak. This show is a kind of dancing of native people from the state of Saba , so it called “Saba dancing” , they dressed with the native outfit that contained with many big red feathers.

Then it time for introducing the delegation from eight countries, there are Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Korea, China, Singapore and Thailand. There are also three observers from ELSA Poland [European Law Student Association]. For Thai delegation, we introducing ourselves by sang the king’s song, name is “Oh, I say” in harmonize style and dance, which could interest other very well. The M.C. of the party was so funny; He cans talks in many languages! And he taught us one of the Malaysian native song, which sings “ rus sus sa rung hae, rus sus sa rung sa rung hae, hae ree hut no na jao, rus sus sa rung sa rung hae” which I do not know the meaning but he let us sang many times till I can remember it.

The party was finished at 11 pm. I was so tired, because yesterday I went to bed at 2 am and woke up at 4 am. Then we backed to the hotel and I had to prepare for the table discussion for tomorrow. Now is nearly 3 am, after I finish writing my journal, I will go to bed immediately!

PUBLIC SPEAKING

7 Jan 08

Today, my faculty had an activity “Public Speaking” at the C building. This activity organized for law student who would like to know how to speak efficiency in the public. The lecturer for this topic is the famous lawyer in Thailand; he is also my senior’s father, Mr.Pramarn Luengwattanawanich.

This activity was divided into two parts; morning section and afternoon section. For the morning section, the lecturer talked about how to speak efficiency in the public and techniques of pleading a case in court. He suggested many method to speak efficiency; such as gesture, eye contact, how to stand, how to use your voice, how to speak, what you should speak or should not, even how to dress! I think it is useful for us, especially for the law student who will be the lawyer in the future. I think one problem of Thai children is “public speaking”, Thai children do not know how to speak efficiency and they are discouraged to express their opinion. Therefore, I think Thai children should practice to speak! If we can speak efficiency, we have a plus. I am the one who try to speak in public, because next week is my test! ALSA Conference is coming and I have to present what I am doing research about wildlife trafficking. I will do my best.

For the afternoon section, there was a practice of public speaking; it was also a competition. We had been asked to pick a topic before we spoke only five minutes. They said that it is a practice of crisis thinking! There were many topics; such as mercy killing, blogger’s rights, inequality wealth etc. more than twenty topics! I had to speak about the rights of the apprentice, which I had no knowledge about it! And it was the same topic with my friend who was speaking then! , and he did it well. I was really nervous and panic. Because there were teachers, who listened and gave us points. Therefore, I just speak what I know and try to add my opinions. I think I did not really well, because I felt harden to speak and I could not speak what I want to that made my face looked so serious, haha. Anyway, it was a good practice before going to conference in Malaysia. I am so exciting, it just three days lefts and I have not ready my luggage yet, there will be a lot of stuff.

Today is also my best friend birthday, but so pity that I had an hour free for her and her party birthday will set on the day that I will be in Malaysia T-T. For tomorrow, I have to go to Chulalongkorn University to have a moot court practicing. My senior and I went there many times before to prepare our indictment. I found that it is really hard working. It is my first time and I will try my best. Anyway, thank you for the website of ICC, it help me a lot to find the provisions. After I back from Malaysia I will report you about conference there in the journal.

LATE!!!!!

First, I'm so sorry that I update my blog so late, because I have a problem with my computer!! now I'm using ABAC's computer!!! it's very fast, I love it hahaha....
Anyway, I'd like to report you about ALSA Conference that I participated on 10-18 January. I may be not up to date, but it's the great experiences of mine.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I know that it is too early, but it is better than late

to say

"MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR"

We wish you a merry Christmas

We wish you a merry Christmas

We wish you a merry Christmas

And a happy New Year.

Glad tidings we bring

To you and your kin;

Glad tidings for Christmas

And a happy New Year!

PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT

Before Mid-Term examination, my psychology teacher assigns homework to search for any topic, which interested.As a law student, I chose the topic...

“Remembering and Forgetting of Eyewitness”

Eyewitness is the person who has seen a thing happens and can give evidence of it. Therefore, in the legal proceeding, eyewitness testimony is a powerful tool as a great evidence for the trial. However, sometime the testimony of eyewitness can be incorrect or unreliable; therefore, we have to study their memories as a part of human memory about remembering and forgetting.
There is a phrase of Huff & Rattner said “the single most important factor contributing to wrongful conviction is eyewitness misidentification”

There are three stages to examine human memory in case of eyewitness, They are…

Stage 1: Witnessing the incident.
When witnessing an incident, information about the event is entered into memory, however, research has shown that a number of factors can influence the accuracy of this initial information acquisition.Take the duration of the event being witnessed for instance. In a very simple experiment conducted by Clifford and Richards in1977, an individual is instructed to approach a number of police officers. They are told to engage in conversation for either 15 or 30 seconds. Thirty seconds after the conversation ends, the experimenter asks the police officer to recall details of the person they have just been speaking to using a 10-item checklist. The checklist contains items relating to the persons appearance such as hair colors, facial hair etc. The results of the study showed that in the longer 30-second condition, police were significantly more accurate in their recall.

Stage 2: Waiting period before giving evidence.
This stage is concerned with the period of retention between perception by seeing an incident and the subsequent recollection of that incident. Unsurprisingly, research has consistently found that the longer the gap between witnessing an incident and recalling the incident, the less accurate the recollection of that incident becomes. There have been numerous experiments, usually related to a staged event, that support this contention. For example, the study case of Malpass and Devine in 1981, for instance, compared the accuracy of witness identifications after 3 days (short retention period) and 5 months (long retention period). The study found no false identifications after 3 days but after 5 months, 35% of identifications were false.

Stage 3: Giving evidence.
The final stage in the eyewitness memory process relates to the ability of the witness to access and retrieve information from memory. In a legal context, the retrieval of information is usually elicited through a process of questioning and it is for this reason that a great deal of research has investigated the impact of types of questioning on eyewitness memory.
The most substantial body of research has concerned leading questions, which has consistently shown that even very subtle changes in the wording of a question can influence subsequent testimony.

From the three stages of experiment found that there is a problem of eyewitness testimony also. I found a case study in the internet. It is a study of American psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus who has conducted many experiments that demonstrate how eyewitnesses can reconstruct their memories based on misleading information. In one study, participants watched a videotape of a car accident involving two cars. Later, they were given a questionnaire about the incident, there is one question asked, “About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” For some groups of participants, however, the verb hit was replaced by smashed, collided, bumped, or contacted. Although all participants viewed the same videotape, their speed estimates differed considerably as a function of how the question was asked.

The average speed estimate was 32 mph when the verb was contacted, 34 mph when it was hit, 38 mph when it was bumped, 39 mph when it was collided, and 41 mph when it was smashed.

In a follow-up study, participants were asked a week later if there was any broken glass in the accident scene. In reality, the film showed no broken glass. Those questioned with the word smashed were more than twice as likely to “remember” broken glass than those asked the question with hit. The information coming in after the original event was integrated with that event, causing it to be remembered in a different way.

We can say that language could have distorting effect on eyewitness, which can lead to inaccurate accounts of eyewitness event. It is possible that the original memory had been reconstructed. However, it is also possible that the original memory may have been replaced or experienced interference. Therefore, questions or words used in police interviews of eyewitness are important. We can say that human memories of events tend to be fragile and easily to distort and reconstruct, for example by suggestions, misleading questions, and false information.
Not only the problem of language that distorting on eyewitness memories, but also the problem of duration. We found that the duration effects on human memory; longer time, more false identification found, because we forget it. We can explain the question “why people forget” ,that Under most conditions, people recall information better soon after learning it than after a long delay; as time passes, they forget some of the information. We have all failed to remember some bit of information when we need it, so we often see forgetting as a bother. However, forgetting can also be useful because we need to update our memories continually.

GOLDEN COMPASS

Today is Saturday, in the morning I have a German class at Goethe institute. When I finished class, I had an appointment with my friend, Phanphatchara. We went to siamsquare together to take a student photo that looks so funny, my face is round and looks strange, I will take a new one again later. Then we had lunch at MK restaurant and went to Paragon shopping mall because Phanphatchara wanted to buy new shoes (again). There are many nice shoes but the prices are not nice like them. I suggested her to go shopping somewhere else not Paragon where everything is so expensive. So, I asked her to go shopping at Platinum mall before Christmas with me and Dollaporn to buy some new clothes and shoes which is very much cheaper than in Paragon.

Then in the evening, I had an appointment with my brother and sister to watch a movie, “Golden Compass”. It is a fantasy film, which based on the trilogy of Philip Pullman, which I haven’t read them yet. The story is about an orphanage girl named is Lyra Belacqua, her world is a world very much like ours, in a parallel universe. In her world, a person’s soul lives on the outside of their body, in the form of a daemon or a talking animal spirit that accompanies them through life. Lyra was brought up among scholars. One day she heard Lord Asriel, her uncle talked about an elementary particles called “Dust” were flowing from a parallel universe, in far north. They believed that “dust” had something related with children and their daemon, so they sent Lord Asriel to the north to explore it. Shortly after Lord Asriel goes north, Lyra’s friends; Billy Costa and Roger disappeared, and she believed that the folkloric “Gobblers” had taken them away to the North. Lyra has vowed to rescue Roger, and found her chance when a visiting woman of great importance, Mrs.Marisa Coulter, offered to take Lyra to the north as her assistant. Before she left, the Master of the College had given her an “alethiometer” or a golden compass, which can tell all the truth to the person who knows how to use it. After a while staying with Mrs.Coulter she found that in fact Mrs.Coulter was head of the General Oblation Board, the real “Goblers” who had been kidnapping children. So, Lyra escaped from her and saved with the Gyptians and find the way to help the kidnapped children. Along the way, she met
Iorek Byrnison, an armoured bear who promised to help her until she reach the victory and another important charactor is Lee Scoresby, an aeronaut.

In the movie it just only the first episode of the three books. Nothing is clear. So it makes me really want to know what will happen next. I cannot wait for the next film, so I decided to buy all three books, but I realize that the Mid-Term exam is coming, so I must keep them away with other books that I have not read yet, they are many. I also found that today Thai’s version Harry Potter was released today too, but I will not buy it until I finished all exams, because I will finished it before reading textbooks for sure!