On Thursday, September 22, the curtains on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia will open for the final time. Given the $350 million spent, lengthy delays, two trials, and continuous controversies, many individuals surprise: was the tribunal definitely worth the expense and energy?
I’m one in all them. I served as an professional witness on the tribunal in 2016. And I’ve spent years conducting analysis on the Khmer Rouge, a gaggle of Marxist revolutionaries who seized energy in April 1975 amid the Vietnam Struggle. By the point they had been toppled from energy in January 1979, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge had dedicated genocide.
Resulting from geopolitics, it took nearly 25 years to determine the United Nations-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal, formally often called the Extraordinary Chambers within the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). However, because it commenced operations in 2006, the courtroom has convicted solely three individuals. Two others have died in custody. The final one standing is 91-year-old Khieu Samphan, the previous Khmer Rouge head of state, whose enchantment might be selected Thursday. Then the ECCC will begin shutting down.
The tribunal has many supporters and detractors. Most fall into three camps.
Purists: For authorized purists, the legislation has a slender perform: “to render justice, and nothing else,” as thinker Hannah Arendt put it. Arendt made this declare whereas expressing reservations about Israel’s politicization of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi bureaucrat who oversaw the deportation of Jews. Doing in any other case, Arendt warned, would result in a present trial.
That is precisely what some human rights actors and even ECCC protection legal professionals declare has occurred on the ECCC. Their issues are reputable and date again to the advanced U.N.-Cambodian negotiations over the institution of the tribunal.
In 1999, a U.N.-appointed Group of Consultants advisable the institution of an advert hoc worldwide tribunal like those held after mass violence in Rwanda and the previous Yugoslavia. Nonetheless, the Cambodian authorities wished management and just a few trials. The ECCC was a 2003 compromise.
The construction of this hybrid courtroom, which mixes U.N. and Cambodian personnel, raised issues about political interference that proved prescient. Corruption allegations nearly instantly emerged. They had been adopted by proof of the Cambodian authorities’s political interference within the trials.
In consequence, most authorized purists regard the tribunal as a failure.
Progressivists: Progressivists acknowledge such authorized shortcomings, however consider courts have a broader goal. Justice, of their view, could be healing and rework society. From this “transitional justice” perspective, worldwide tribunals may also help obtain the liberal progressive aim of remodeling post-authoritarian societies into democracies ruled by the rule of legislation and human rights.
The ECCC has been deeply intertwined with the thought of transitional justice. The 2003 U.N.-Cambodia settlement foregrounded Cambodia’s “pursuit of justice and nationwide reconciliation, stability, peace and safety.” These objectives are embodied by the courtroom’s slogan, “Transferring Ahead by Justice.” The Worldwide Heart for Transitional Justice and different actors have sought to assist facilitate Cambodia’s transformation.
The hoped-for democratic transformation has not materialized. As an alternative, Cambodia’s ruling occasion has cracked down on the opposition, suppressed human rights, and drawn near China. Some declare Cambodia has change into an authoritarian state.
Given this consequence, most progressivists additionally regard the ECCC as a failure.
Pragmatists: Like purists, pragmatists view the probabilities of worldwide justice as restricted. However they regard all tribunals, from the Nuremberg trials to the Worldwide Felony Courtroom, as political. And like progressivists, pragmatists consider that the affect of worldwide justice extends past the courtroom – although is unlikely to be transformative.
As an alternative, pragmatists search for modest achievements that may assist a post-conflict society attain a measure of justice and therapeutic for atrocity crimes. Alongside these strains, the ECCC’s accomplishments embody holding some Khmer Rouge leaders accountable, combatting genocide denial, and deterring would-be genocidaires. And, although restricted in purview, the tribunal has clarified the historic report and compiled key documentation about Khmer Rouge rule.
Working with non-governmental organizations, the courtroom has additionally robustly engaged victims and the broader public. A 2018 examine discovered that, regardless of outreach challenges in a rural nation, most Cambodian victims view the ECCC favorably and are content material with the small variety of trials.
These achievements are important. For that reason, most pragmatists view the tribunal as a hit.
I do as effectively. As I recount in my forthcoming e-book, “Anthropological Witness: Skilled Classes from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal,” it was due to such pragmatic prospects that I testified as an professional witness on the ECCC. I wished to contribute to the method of justice-seeking in Cambodia by serving to clarify how and why genocide passed off.
Trying again, the ECCC affords a lesson and reminder.
Justice is a salve. Whereas it’s messy, it might soothe and assist heal. However in the event you count on it to remedy, justice will break your coronary heart.
