When a tribunal was formed in 2006 to address the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge, many expected the Cambodian model for victim empowerment to open a new path for international judiciary initiatives. However, the local reality of the justice intervention has been more complicated. Rather than joining the success-or-failure debate about the court, this volume pays special attention to how the trials are perceived locally. Inclinations in institutional design, favored or excluded political agendas, mismatched values between experts and locals, and unexpected local meaning-making all flow into the current context in Cambodia. Through critical analysis by authors with on-the-ground experience, this collection--the first to address the tribunal through a sociological framework--provides insight into the tension between the global justice regime and local societal context.

In just a few short years, the Khmer Rouge presided over one of the twentieth century’s cruelest reigns of terror. Since its 1979 overthrow, there have been several attempts to hold the perpetrators accountable, from a People’s Revolutionary Tribunal shortly afterward through the early 2000s Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, also known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Extraordinary Justice offers a definitive account of the quest for justice in Cambodia that uses this history to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the interaction between law and politics in war crimes tribunals. Craig Etcheson, one of the world’s foremost experts on the Cambodian genocide and its aftermath, draws on decades of experience to trace the evolution of transitional justice in the country from the late 1970s to the present. He considers how war crimes tribunals come into existence, how they operate and unfold, and what happens in their wake. Etcheson argues that the concepts of legality that hold sway in such tribunals should be understood in terms of their orientation toward politics, both in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and generally. A magisterial chronicle of the inner workings of postconflict justice, Extraordinary Justice challenges understandings of the relationship between politics and the law, with important implications for the future of attempts to seek accountability for crimes against humanity.

The Khmer Rouge held power in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and aggressively pursued a policy of radical social reform that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians through mass executions and physical privation. In January 1979, the government was overthrown by former Khmer Rouge functionaries, with substantial backing from the army of Vietnam. In August of that year a special court, the People's Revolutionary Tribunal, was constituted to try two of the Khmer Rouge government's most powerful leaders, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary. The charge against them was genocide as it was defined in the United Nation's genocide convention of 1948. At the time, both men were in the Cambodian jungle leading the Khmer Rouge in a struggle to regain power; they were, therefore, tried in absentia. Genocide in Cambodia assembles documents from this historic trial and contains extensive reports from the People's Revolutionary Tribunal. The book opens with essays that discuss the nature of the primary documents, and places the trial in its historical, legal, and political context. The documents are divided into three parts: those relating to the establishment of the tribunal; those used as evidence, including statements of witnesses, investigative reports of mass grave sites, expert opinions on the social and cultural impact of the actions of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, and accounts from the foreign press; and finally the record of the trial, beginning with the prosecutor's indictment and ending with the concluding speeches by the attorneys for the defense and prosecution. The trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary was the world's first genocide trial based on United Nations's policy as well as the first trial of a head of government on a human rights-related charge. This documentary record is significant for the history of Cambodia, and it will be of the highest importance as well to the international legal and human rights communities.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist describes how Cambodia emerged from the harrowing years when a quarter of its population perished under the Khmer Rouge. A generation after genocide, Cambodia seemed on the surface to have overcome its history -- the streets of Phnom Penh were paved; skyscrapers dotted the skyline. But under this façe lies a country still haunted by its years of terror. Although the international community tried to rebuild Cambodia and introduce democracy in the 1990s, in the country remained in the grip of a venal government. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joel Brinkley learned that almost a half of Cambodians who lived through the Khmer Rouge era suffered from P.T.S.D. -- and had passed their trauma to the next generation. His extensive close-up reporting in Cambodia's Curse illuminates the country, its people, and the deep historical roots of its modern-day behavior.

For survivors of the brutal Khmer Rouge Regime, western instruments of justice are small plasters on deep wounds. In Hinton's account of the subsequent international tribunal, only traditional ceremony, ritual, and unmediated dialogue can provide true healing.

This book provides detailed analyses of systems that have been established to provide reparations to victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and the way in which these systems have worked and are working in practice. Many of these systems are described and assessed for the first time in an academic publication. The publication draws upon a groundbreaking Conference organised by the Clemens Nathan Research Centre (CNRC) and REDRESS at the Peace Palace in The Hague, with the support of the Dutch Carnegie Foundation. Both CNRC and REDRESS had become very concerned about the extreme difficulty encountered by most victims of serious international crimes in attempting to access effective and enforceable remedies and reparation for harm suffered. In discussions between the Conference organisers and Judges and officials of the International Criminal Court, it became ever more apparent that there was a great need for frank and open exchanges on the question of effective reparation, between the representatives of victims, of NGOs and IGOs, and other experts. It was clear to all that the many current initiatives of governments and regional and international institutions to afford reparations to victims of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes could benefit greatly by taking into full account the wide and varied practice that had been built up over several decades. In particular, the Hague Conference sought to consider in detail the long experience of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany (the Claims Conference) in respect of Holocaust restitution programmes, as well as the practice of truth commissions, arbitral proceedings and a variety of national processes to identify common trends, best practices and lessons. This book thus explores the actions of governments, as well as of national and international courts and commissions in applying, processing, implementing and enforcing a variety of reparations schemes and awards. Crucially, it considers the entire complex of issues from the perspective of the beneficiaries - survivors and their communities - and from the perspective of the policy-makers and implementers tasked with resolving technical and procedural challenges in bringing to fruition adequate, effective and meaningful reparations in the context of mass victimisation.

This book is the first comprehensive study on the work and functioning of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC were established in 2006 to bring to trial senior leaders and those most responsible for serious crimes committed under the notorious Khmer Rouge regime. Established by domestic law following an agreement in 2003 between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the UN, the ECCC’s hybrid features provide a unique approach of accountability for mass atrocities. The book entails an analysis of the work and jurisprudence of the ECCC, providing a detailed assessment of their legacies and contribution to international criminal law. The collection, containing 20 chapters from leading scholars and practitioners with inside knowledge of the ECCC, discuss the most pressing topics and its implications for international criminal law. These include the establishment of the ECCC, subject matter crimes, joint criminal enterprise and procedural aspects, including questions regarding the trying of frail accused persons and the admission of torture statements into evidence. Simon M. Meisenberg is an Attorney-at-Law in Germany, formerly he was a Legal Advisor to the ECCC and a Senior Legal Officer at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Ignaz Stegmiller is Coordinator for the International Programs of the Faculty of Law at the Franz von Liszt Institute for International and Comparative Law, Giessen, Germany.