Lessons from Cambodia: Towards a Victims-Oriented Approach to Contextual Transitional Justice (Abstract Only)

Full article will be available pending publisher authorisation.The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is the primary mechanism of transitional justice for the Khmer Rouge regime. The ECCC is, truly, extraordinary; however, the tribunal and the outside world are somewhat disjointed. There is little correlation between the rigidity of the tribunal structure, working to high evidentiary civil standards, to the vibrant, messy, communal, and often impoverished life outside. Victims who participated as civil parties before the ECCC would not understand when sometimes – despite their indisputably real injury – there was insufficient evidence for the crime site, or responsibility could not be attributed to the accused and they received no recognition or compensation for their suffering. What justice, reconciliation, or peace is there in a mechanism that is not understood or connected in anything more than a remote sense to the millions of victims themselves? Does “justice” have to come from the authority of a UN-endorsed, internationally reputable tribunal in order to be legitimate? Or, could there be an approach that takes its form and meaning directly from the injury of the victims, and through this deliver a sense of justice perhaps more tangibly than through an imported solution? In this article, we examine these questions and advocate for a victims-oriented, context-specific approach to transitional justice, through the lens of the post-conflict experience of Cambodia