Morton Sklar
(1940-2026)
International Human Rights Advocate and Counsel to the Khmer Community
In Recognition
This page reflects Morton Sklar’s work with the Khmer community for more than three decades, informed in particular by his final years of close collaboration with Save Cambodia beginning in 2019.
Morton was an international human rights lawyer, litigator and advocate. He was widely recognized for developing and litigating landmark human rights cases in U.S. and international forums and for serving as legal counsel to communities confronting repression when domestic remedies were unavailable.
Save Cambodia hosts this page as a steward of record. While Morton’s work with the Khmer community long predated Save Cambodia, much of his professional record was never centralized online, and his biography does not exist in one public place. This page brings together his broader career and his work with the Khmer community so that the community he served can see the full scope of his life and contributions.
Background and Legal Career
Morton Sklar earned his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School and his Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from New York University. He began his human rights career during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, working on voting‑rights protections in Alabama as a Senior Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division. He was in Selma, Alabama during the 1965 demonstrations led by Martin Luther King at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
For approximately twenty‑five years, Morton taught International Law and Human Rights as an adjunct faculty member at The Catholic University of America. He was elected to serve two terms on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
In 1995, he founded a human rights litigation organization, initially named the World Organization Against Torture USA (WOAT USA), later known as Human Rights USA. Through this organization, he developed and litigated a long list of highly creative and innovative human rights cases.
Landmark Litigation and Judicial Service
Morton developed and litigated a number of ground-breaking human rights cases, including the first and only successful legal challenge to the U.S. government’s “rendition to torture” policy in the Ahmed Abu Ali case. He also filed the first human rights case in U.S. courts against a sitting head of state, challenging claims of absolute head‑of‑state immunity in the 2005 case against Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
He litigated landmark corporate accountability cases, including the 2007 Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao case, where Yahoo! was responsible for providing information to the Government of China on Chinese human rights advocates. These cases set important precedents on corporate responsibility and digital repression.
Morton also litigated a series of refugee protection cases that prevented women from being deported back to their home countries, where they faced the threat of sexual abuse, such as female genital mutilation, including the Philomena Nwaokolo case.
In addition to litigation, Morton served two terms, totaling nine years, as a Judge on the Administrative Labor Tribunal of the Organization of American States, having been appointed twice by the Clinton Administration. In this role, he adjudicated labor and institutional rights within an international judicial framework.
In 1997, he served on the United Nations International Labour Organization’s Commission of Inquiry for Burma (Myanmar), conducting on‑site investigations into forced labor and systemic human and labor rights violations. The Commission’s findings contributed to sustained international pressure on the military government.
Work with the Khmer Community
Morton engaged in Cambodia‑related legal and advocacy work continuously from at least 2005 onward. He filed the 2005 U.S. lawsuit against Prime Minister Hun Sen and later submitted complaints to the International Criminal Court on behalf of victims of forced land evictions and other major human rights abuses, including allegations related to interference with the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
In 2017, he also pursued legal action related to the Cambodian government’s alleged cover‑up of the March 1997 grenade attacks against political opposition figures, including cases involving Hun Manet and the role of the Prime Minister’s Personal Bodyguard Unit.
For the Khmer community, Morton served as a sustained and trusted legal counsel across many years. He worked with advocates inside Cambodia and throughout the diaspora, helping them document abuses, engage international mechanisms and pursue accountability when domestic space was closed or dangerous.
He understood that sovereignty was not a peripheral issue for the Khmer people, but a core concern tied to dignity, security and self‑determination. While many international actors avoided the issue, Morton worked carefully to ensure it could be raised effectively when framed within credible international standards.
Final Years and Systems Built
In the final years of his life, Morton co‑founded and served as Legal Counsel to the Commission of Inquiry for Cambodia, drawing on his prior experience with the UN ILO Commission of Inquiry for Burma. He authored the Commission’s founding language, framing it as a community‑driven response to sustained international inaction.
Through his role with the Commission, Morton helped shape documented submissions that directly informed United Nations engagement on Cambodia during the 2023–2024 period. These efforts contributed to the UN’s public determination that Cambodia’s 2023 national election could not be considered free, fair or legitimate, and to the issuance and reinforcement of the UN Action Plan of Reform Measures.
He also collaborated with Amnesty International and UNESCO to address forced land evictions in the Angkor Wat region. As a result of these efforts, mass evictions were halted and UNESCO initiated fact‑finding activities related to evictions and site‑management concerns.
During this same period, Morton played a central role in helping the Khmer community reach the U.S. State Department, where the Department hosted the community at a formal roundtable bringing together U.S. officials and international experts. That roundtable was not a conclusion, but the result of sustained initiatives and accumulated advocacy over preceding years.
Method and Continuity
For more than twenty‑five years, Morton urged the Khmer community to adopt a community‑based urgent action model similar to Amnesty International’s. Under his guidance, the Khmer Urgent Action Network was implemented in 2022 as a durable mechanism for international engagement and rapid response to arrests, political repression, land evictions and other urgent concerns.
Morton’s consistent message was to speak truth to power and to apply pressure strategically. He insisted that advocacy be judged by whether it produced meaningful and effective change, not by visibility or activity for its own sake. He pushed for persistence, clarity and sequencing—building on what had already worked, expanding successful models and continually refining strategy rather than starting over.
Those who worked closely with Morton knew him as disciplined and deeply humble. He did not seek recognition and asked that there be no ceremony upon his passing. He believed the work should speak for itself, and he encouraged creative thinking at every stage, always pressing for approaches that were innovative, focused and grounded in real leverage.
This page preserves his record not as a memorial, but as part of the living foundation of ongoing advocacy.
The work continues.