Khmer Rouge Trials in Context

"When a tribunal was set up in 2006 to bring justice for the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime, many expected that the Cambodian model for victim empowerment would open a new path in the history of international judiciary initiatives. However, the local reality of the justice intervention has been more complicated. Why and how have challenges beset the process, and yet why has the Khmer Rouge Tribunal still been significant in Cambodian society? Rather than joining the success-or-failure debate about the court, this volume pays special attention to how the trials are perceived locally by the Cambodian people themselves. Particular inclinations in institutional design, favored or excluded political agendas, mismatched values between experts and locals, and unexpected local meaning-making all flow into the creation of 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"--Back cover.