Extraordinary Justice

Law, Politics, and the Khmer Rouge Tribunals

Craig Etcheson

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780231550727
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. For example, as one newspaper reported, “critics of Mr. Trump quickly denounced what they called ‘banana republic’ politics of retribution, akin to autocratic nations where election losers are jailed by winners.” Peter Baker, “Playing Down Trump’s Effort to Get Clinton,” The New York Times, November 15, 2017.

2. Judith N. Shklar, Legalism: Laws, Morals, and Political Trials (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 167.

3. Shklar, Legalism, 168.

4. Otto Kirchheimer, Political Justice: The Use of Legal Procedure for Political Ends (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 334.

5. Peter Maguire, Law and War: An American Story (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 130.

6. Shklar, Legalism, 1.

7. Shklar, Legalism, 111.

8. A more prosaic example comes from an outsider. In the mid-1990s, a Cambodian Buddhist monk visited the United States and toured numerous states and several big cities, taking in many sights. At the end of his visit, he was asked by his guide what was the most amazing thing he had seen. The monk thought for a moment, and replied simply, “Stoplights. When the light changes, all the cars stop, without anyone ordering them or threatening them.” I am grateful to Bill Herod for this anecdote.

9. “Report to the President by Mr. Justice Jackson, June 6, 1945,” Report of Robert H. Jackson, United States Representative to the International Conference on Military Trials: London, 1945 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1949).

10. Robert H. Jackson, “The Rule of Law Among Nations,” American Bar Association Journal 31 (June 1945): 290–94.

11. Maguire, Law and War.

12. Maguire, Law and War, 9.

13. Edward Hallett Carr, The Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), 177.

14. John N. Hazard, “Legal Policy in the Soviet Union,” in The Soviet Union in the 1980s, ed. Erik P. Hoffmann (New York: The Academy of Political Science, 1984), 57.

1. REVOLUTIONARY JUSTICE

1. D.G.E. Hall, A History of Southeast Asia, 4th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 119.

2. G. Coedès, The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, ed. Walter F. Vella, trans. Susan Brown Cowing. (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1968), 58; R. C. Majumdar, Kambuja-Desa or An Ancient Hindu Colony in Cambodia (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1980), 37.

3. David Chandler, “Royally Sponsored Human Sacrifices in Nineteenth Century Cambodia,” in David Chandler, Facing the Cambodian Past (Chaing Mai: Silkworm Books, 1996), 119–135. In the context of the pre-Angkorian period, Vickery casts doubt about the practice. Michael Vickery, Society, Economy and Politics in Pre-Angkor Cambodia: The 7th–8th Century (Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies for UNESCO, 1998), 247.

4. Roderic Broadhurst, Thierry Bouhours, and Brigette Bouhours, Violence and the Civilizing Process in Cambodia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

5. David P. Chandler, A History of Cambodia, 2nd ed. (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1993), 155.

6. Hor Peng, “The Modern Era of Cambodian Constitutionalism,” in Introduction to Cambodian Law, ed. Hor Peng, Kong Phallack and Jorg Menzel (Phnom Penh: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2012), 32–33.

7. Hor Peng, “The Modern Era of Cambodian Constitutionalism,” 33 n. 34.

8. Steve Heder, “Hun Sen and Genocide Trials in Cambodia,” in Cambodia Emerges from the Past: Eight Essays, ed. Judy Ledgerwood (DeKalb, IL: Southeast Asia Publications, 2002), 176–223.

9. Milton Osborne, Sihanouk: Prince of Light, Prince of Darkness (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994), 157.

10. Osbo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• Introduction
• One: Revolutionary Justice
• Two: Victor’s Justice
• Three: Negotiating Justice
• Four: Justice Delayed
• Five: Hybrid Justice
• Six: Transitional Justice
• Seven: Selective Justice
• Eight: Genocide Justice
• Nine: Justice Denied
• Ten: Extraordinary Justice
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index