Thailand was among the first nations to sign the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and seemed committed to safeguarding Human Rights in Thailand. In practice, the reality has been that the powerful can abuse the human rights of their subjects with impunity. From 1977 to 1988, Amnesty International reported that there "...were 1,436 alleged cases of arbitrary detention, 58 forced disappearances, 148 torture and 345 extrajudicial killings in Thailand...The authorities investigated and whitewashed each case." Amnesty International's (AI) "Amnesty International Report 2017/18; The State of the World's Human Rights" demonstrates that not much has changed in the interim. A 2019 HRW report expands on AI's overview as it focuses specifically on the case of Thailand.