The stories we tell victims: Victim participation and outreach programs at the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia

Tine Destrooper

doi:10.1515/ijld-2018-2005

Article

The stories we tell victims: Victim participation and outreach programs at the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia

Published/Copyright: July 14, 2018

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal International Journal of Legal Discourse Volume 3 Issue 1

Abstract

Victim participation and elaborate outreach programs are becoming increasingly important features of international and hybrid criminal courts. The aspiration is that these programs will increase the local relevance of these courts' work, enhance the sustainability of justice processes after international actors leave, and empower victims en passant. In the last decade, considerable attention and resources have been dedicated to the development of state-of-the-art outreach and participation programs, resulting in exciting new engagement models that are then, on average, evaluated in legal and technical terms. So far, however, little attention has been paid to the more long-term and indirect effects of exposure to certain – unidimensional and hierarchically organized – narratives about justice. In a first step to systematically analyze this question, this article maps the discursive priorities and structure of one of the tribunals (Cambodia) where victim participation and outreach played a central role. The article uses innovative large-n qualitative computational text analysis methods and raises critical questions about (a) the disconnect between prosecutorial prioritization strategies and popular priorities for the justice process, (b) the success of outreach programs in bringing a locally relevant message, and (c) the extent to which outreach and victim participation succeeded in bridging the gap between the work of the ECCC and the realities of people on the ground.

Keywords: victim participation; criminal justice; economic; social and cultural rights; discourse analysis

Funding statement: The research was made possible through the generous support of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU's Law School, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the EURIAS Fellowship Programme, the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Actions - COFUND Programme - FP7, and the Human Rights Center at the University of Ghent.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Steve Beissinger, Franco Moretti, Gwyneth McClendon, Jean-Pierre Charriau, Francis Chateaureynaud and Jing Liao for advice on the data-analysis, and Marcos Zunino for advice on the selection of ECCC documents and Carey Harrison for language revision.

Declaration of interest statement: The author declares no conflict of interest.

References

Arbour, L. Economic and Social justice for societies in transition. Emilio Mignone Lecture on Transitional Justice, New York.Search in Google Scholar

Bjorkdahl, A. & J. M. Selimovic. 2015. Translating UNSCR 1325 from the global to the national: Protection, representation and participation in the National Action Plans of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwanda. Conflict, Security & Development 15(4). 311–335.10.1080/14678802.2015.1071973Search in Google Scholar

Blei, D. M. 2012. Probabilistic topic models. Communications of the ACM 55(4). 77–84.10.1145/2133806.2133826Search in Google Scholar

Blei, D. M. & J. D. Lafferty. 2009. Topic models. New York: Columbia Computer Science Papers.Search in Google Scholar

Borraine, A. 2006. Transitional Justice: A holistic interpretation. Journal of Internaitonal Affairs 17. 18.Search in Google Scholar

Bottomley, R. 2014. The role of civil society in influencing policy and practice in Cambodia. Oxford: Oxfam Novib.Search in Google Scholar

Cambodia Tribunal Monitor. 2013. Chronology of the Khmer Rouge movement. http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/history/cambodian-history/chronology-of-the-khmer-rouge-movement/ (accessed 6 June 2017).Search in Google Scholar

Chandler, D. 1983. A history of Cambodia. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.Search in Google Scholar

Chandler, D. 1999. Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot's secret prison. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520924550Search in Google Scholar

de Greiff, P. 2014. Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence to the Human Rights Council. A/HRC/27/56. Geneva: Human Rights Council.Search in Google Scholar

Defalco, R. 2014. Justice and starvation in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge famine. Cambodia Law and Policy Journal 3. 46–84.Search in Google Scholar

Defalco, R. 2016. Unspectacular atrocities an the visibility politics of international criminal law - An interactional account. New York: Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.Search in Google Scholar

Downie, S. & D. Kingsbury. 2001. Political development and the re-emergence of civil society in Cambodia. Contemporary South East Asia 23(1). 43–64.10.1355/CS23-1CSearch in Google Scholar

ECCC. 2015. Internal Rules. Phnom Penh: ECCC. https://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/legal-documents/Internal_Rules_Rev_9_Eng.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

ECCC. 2017. Financial Outlook March 2017. Phnom Penh: ECCC. https://eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/ECCC%20Financial%20Data%20as%20at%2015%20Mar%202017.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

Etcheson, C. 1999. “The Number” – quantifying crimes against humanity in Cambodia. Phnom Penh: DC-CAM.Search in Google Scholar

Genocide Studies Program. 2015. Cambodian Genocide Program. Yale University. http://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/cambodian-genocide-program.Search in Google Scholar

Gidley, R. Illiberal transitional justice: The extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia. Holding accountability accountable. Worcester: Clark University Strassler Center.Search in Google Scholar

Gottesman, E. 2003. Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge. Inside the politics of nation building. New Haven: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Gready, P. & S. Robins. 2014. From transitional to transformative justice. International Journal of Transitional Justice 8(3). 339–361.10.1093/ijtj/iju013Search in Google Scholar

Human Rights Watch. 2017. Cambodia. https://www.hrw.org/asia/cambodia (accessed 7 June 2017).Search in Google Scholar

Jasini, R. & V. Phan. 2011. Victim participation at the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia: Are retributive and restorative principles enhancing the prospect for justice? Cambridge Review of International Affairs 24(3). 379–401.10.1080/09557571.2011.617001Search in Google Scholar

Jennar, R. M. 1995a. The Cambodian constitutions (1953-1993). Bangkok: White Lotus.Search in Google Scholar

Jennar, R. M. 1995b. Les Clés du Cambodge. Jugement sur la mission de l'ONU, (1991-1993) APRONUC. http://vorasith.online.fr/cambodge/livres/cles.htm (accessed 6 June 2017).Search in Google Scholar

Kiernan, B. 1996. The pol pot regime: Race, power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. New Haven: Yale University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kijewski, L. 2016. Starvation in Battambar. http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/2016/12/09/starvation-in-battambang/. (accessed 26 February 2017).Search in Google Scholar

May, T. 2017. The stories we tell ourselves. New York Times, January 16, 2017.Search in Google Scholar

McClendon, G. African churches' influence on conceptions of economic justice. New York University, March 16, 2016.Search in Google Scholar

McEvoy, K. 2007. Beyond Legalism: Towards a thicker understanding of transitional justice. Journal of Law and Society 34(4). 411–440.10.1111/j.1467-6478.2007.00399.xSearch in Google Scholar

McGonigle, B. 2009. Two for the price of one: Victim participation and the ECCC, a criminal court and reconciliation commission in one. Leiden Journal of International Law 22. 127–149.10.1017/S0922156508005669Search in Google Scholar

Miller, Z. 2008. Effects of invisibility. International Journal of Transitional Justice 17(2). 266–291.10.1093/ijtj/ijn022Search in Google Scholar

Mohan, G. & K. Stokke. 2000. Participatory development and empowerment: The dangers of localism. Third World Quarterly 21(2). 247–268.10.1080/01436590050004346Search in Google Scholar

Moretti, F. & D. Pestre. 2015. Bankspeak: The Language of World Bank Reports, 1946–2012. Literary Lab, 9.Search in Google Scholar

Newman, D. J. & S. Block. 2006. Probabilistic topic decomposition of an eighteenth-century american newspaper. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 57. 753–767.10.1002/asi.20342Search in Google Scholar

NGO Forum. 2013. History. https://www.ngoforum.org.kh/index.php/en/about-ngof/our-history (accessed 25 February 2017).Search in Google Scholar

O'Brien, M. Obstacles to international criminal accountability for forced marriage in mass atrocities. Holding Accountability Accountable. Worcester: Clark University Strassler Center.Search in Google Scholar

OHCHR. 2006. Rule-of-law tools for post-conflict states. Prosecution intitiatives. New York and Geneva: U.N.Search in Google Scholar

OHCHR. 2006-2016. Role and achievements of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in assisting the Government and people of Cambodia in the promotion and protection of human rights. Geneva and New York: Human Rights CouncilA/HRC/33/39.Search in Google Scholar

OHCHR. 2014. Transitional justice and economic, social and cultural rights. New York and Geneva: OHCHR & UN.Search in Google Scholar

Open Society Foundations. 2010. Political interference at the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia. Justice Initiative Report. http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/political-interference-extraordinary-chambers-courts-cambodia (Accessed: 18 August 2016).Search in Google Scholar

Open Society Foundations. 2016. Performance and Perception: The impact of the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia. New York City: Open Society Foundations.Search in Google Scholar

Pham, P., P. Vinck, M. Balthazard & S. Hean. 2011. After the first trial: A population-based survey on knowledge and perception of justice and the extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia: University of California. Berkeley: School of Law.10.2139/ssrn.1860963Search in Google Scholar

Samson, N. 2012. Keynote address. Journal of International criminal justice 2(1). 39–45.Search in Google Scholar

Schmid, E. 2015. Taking economic, social and cultural rights seriously in international criminal law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781107519107Search in Google Scholar

Schmid, E. & A. Nolan. 2014. “Do No Harm’? Exploring the scope of economic and social rights in transitional justice. International Journal of Transitional Justice 8. 362–382.10.1093/ijtj/iju015Search in Google Scholar

Servaes, S. & N. Zupan. 2010. New Horizons: Linking development cooperation and transtional justice for sustainable peace. Bonn: Working group on development and peace.Search in Google Scholar

Sliwinski, M. 1995. Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique. Paris: L'Harmattan.Search in Google Scholar

Smith, R. 2015. Report of the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia A/HRC/30/58. Geneva: Human Rights Council.Search in Google Scholar

Sokha, C. & J. O'Toole. 2010. Hun Sen to Ban Ki-Moon: Case 002 Last Trial at ECCC. Phnom Penh Post. October 27, 2010.Search in Google Scholar

Teitel, R. 2014. Globalizing transitional justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394948.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Vickery, M. 1984. Cambodia 1975-1982. Boston, MA: End Press.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2017-12-11

Accepted: 2018-02-26

Published Online: 2018-07-14

Published in Print: 2018-08-28

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2018-2005

Keywords for this article

victim participation; criminal justice; economic; social and cultural rights; discourse analysis