BIOGRAPHY OF H.E. Prof. Bundit Sapheacha Dr. SOK Siphana

On 22 August 2023, for the 7^th mandate of the Royal Government of Cambodia, Dr SOK Siphana was appointed as a full-fledged cabinet member as Senior Minister in charge of Special Missions (Multilateral Trade and Economic Affairs). In addition to his portfolio as Senior Minister, he was appointed as the 1^st Vice-Chair of the Council of Legal Reform in March 2024, and Chairman of the Trade Policy Advisory Board in April. In May 2024, he began chairing the Committee on the Promotion of Resolutions of Private Sector Issues, which is attached to the Cabinet of the Prime Minister.

Previously, he was appointed by former Prime Minister Samdech Techo HUN Sen
as Advisor to the Royal Government
of Cambodia with a rank of Minister in August 2009 attached concurrently with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Supreme National Economic Council (SNEC), and the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). Subsequently in September 2018, he was reappointed as Senior Advisor with a rank of Senior Minister.

From 2010 to August 2023, he was a practicing attorney and the Founding Partner of SokSiphana&associates, a law and consulting firm specialized in international trade and corporate law in Phnom Penh. He serves currently as the Emeritus Chairman of the Board of the Asian Vision Institute (AVI), having led the organization since 2019 as its chairman. From 2011 to 2017, he served as Chairman of the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI), Cambodia’s oldest and prominent independent research institute.

From 1999 to 2005, he served as Secretary of State at the Ministry of Commerce,
where he acted as the lead negotiator in Cambodia’s accession to the WTO. From October 2005 to July 2009, he served as Director at the International Trade Center (ITC),
a joint technical agency of UNCTAD and WTO in Geneva, Switzerland. From 1993-1998, he was the legal expert for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) attached to the Council for the Development of Cambodia.

Dr SOK is holder of a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Widener University School of Law in Delaware, United States (1992), a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) from Bond University School of Law in Queensland, Australia (2009), and a “Docteur en Droit” from the Université de Paris II Panthéon-Assas, Paris, France (2022). In 13 October 2022, His Majesty The King has bestowed him a lifetime Royal Title of “Bundit Sapheacha” (Academician) at the Royal Academy of Cambodia as well as in 20 July 2023 a full Professorship.

Career wise at the service of Cambodian diplomacy, Dr SOK was attached since 2011 to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, H.E. Hor Namhong followed by H.E. Prak Sokhonn, where he served, among other advisory functions, the following: during Cambodia Chairmanship of ASEAN in 2012, as Member of the ASEAN Task Force on Substantive Issues, ASEAN India Eminent Person Group Co-Chair, Cambodian Sherpa to G20 and High Level Cambodian Representative to G20 Development Working Group. For Cambodia Chairmanship of ASEAN in 2022, he was appointed as Chair of the National Sub-Committee on Substances and Documentation and a G20 Sherpa. Since 2011, he acted as ASEM SOM and was entrusted with the responsibility of organizing Cambodia’s hosting of the 13^th ASEM Summit in 2020. He acted also as SOM for the Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), and for all the Mekong Cooperation initiatives, including Mekong-Japan, Mekong-ROK, Mekong-Ganga, Mekong-Lancang, Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), ACMECS, as well as serving as the Chairman of the Mekong-Lancang Special Fund. From 2011 to 2018, he was also a Convenor of a weekly 45 minutes “Cambodia’s Global Dialogue” policy talk show at South East Asia TV (SEATV).