A lecturer in the International Public Law and International Business Law graduate programs at the Royal University of the Law and Economics (RULE), Raymond Leos is also the Dean of the Faculty of Communications and Media Arts at Pannasastra University of Cambodia and a Senior Advisor to the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Cambodia. In addition, he is an adjunct lecturer in RULE’s bachelor’s major program in International Relations.
Recently, Pr. Leos also served as a legal advisor to the Access to Information Technical Working Group (TWG), which is worked with the Ministry of Information of the Royal Government of Cambodia in the drafting of Cambodia’s first freedom of information law.
Since 2002, Pr. Leos has been a consultant for numerous development projects in Cambodia, including those funded by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Asian Development Bank (ADB), The Asia Foundation (TAF), European Commission, DANIDA, Dan Church Aid (DCA), and Forum Syd. He has also served as a technical advisor to various governmental bodies and local NGOs, including the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (MOEYS), Advocacy and Policy Institute (API), Cambodian Defenders Project (CDP), and the Khmer Institute of Democracy (KID).
His professional and research interests include developing effective legal frameworks for transparency, the role of freedom of information in promoting human rights, good governance and economic growth, and the social, political and economic impacts of new digital media platforms. He is currently at work on two book projects—one examining the history and the social, political and economic underpinnings of propaganda, and another focusing on Cambodia-U.S. relations and the role of the international media during the Indochina War of the 1960s and 1970s.
Pr. Leos serves on the board of the directors of several local NGOs, including the Open Institute Cambodia and the Cambodian Defenders Project. He is also chair of the Events and Program Committee and a member of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee of the American Cambodian Business Council (AMCHAM), and a member of the Cambodian Society of Comparative Law.
Prior to coming to Cambodia in 2002, Pr. Leos worked in the United States as a journalist, free-lance writer and as a lawyer specializing in criminal law, media law, intellectual property, labor law, and civil rights issues.
Pr. Leos holds a J.D. from the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) King Hall School of Law, an M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and a B.A. with honors in History from Claremont McKenna College.