Transitional Justice and Victim Participation in Cambodia: A World Polity Perspective

Abstract

Since the 1990s, the term “transitional justice” has been commonly used to label approaches that deal with the past. From a world polity perspective transitional justic is based on global norms and offers various methods for coming to terms with macro-criminal wrongdoings. The most recent development in transitional justice was the establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). In the article we illustrate the fruitfulness of world polity research by referring to the case of Cambodia, with a special focus on the implementation of victim participation by the ECCC. Our argument is that even if there are particular local conditions for the Cambodian way of dealing with crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge, transitional justice in Cambodia can be seen as an adoption of globally institutionalised expectations of how a state should present itself with respect to its dealing with past human rights violations. We argue that the inclusion of victims in Cambodian transitional justice mechanisms could be seen as a consequence of shifts in the global environment. For that, the shift of seeing genocide and mass murder not only as evil or a fate, but as a violation of individual human rights, is crucial. Even so, we acknowledge the enabling effect that local circumstances had on these developments.

Notes

*The authors would like to thank the reviewers and the editor for very helpful comments.

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4. John W. Meyer and W. Richard Scott, Institutional Environments and Organizations: Structural Complexity and Individualism (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), p. 42.

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3. This is not to test the theory on a single case, but to try to explore a case using a theory that focuses on exogenous rather than on endogenous factors. The underlying assumption here is that the invention of transitional justice in Cambodia cannot be sufficiently explained by domestic, Cambodian factors.

7. John Boli, John W. Meyer, Francisco O. Ramirez and George M. Thomas, “World Society and the Nation State”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 103, No. 1 (1997), p. 145.

5. For that term see David John Frank and John W. Meyer, “The Profusion of Individual Roles and Identities in the Postwar Period”, Sociological Theory, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2002), pp. 86–105.

6. We refer here to the term international society as it is used by the English School of International Relations describing the world of states integrated by shared norms. See Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

8. See John Boli and George M. Thomas, “World Culture in the World Polity: A Century of International Non-governmental Organization”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1997), p. 172.

9. Boli et al., op. cit., p. 145.

10. Georg Krücken, “Einleitung”, in John W. Meyer (ed.), Weltkultur: Wie die westlichen Prinzipien die Welt durchdringen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005), p. 13 (authors' translation).

11. See John Boli and George M. Thomas (eds), Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875: International Nongovernmental Organizations since 1875 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

12. See, for example, studies on the impact that global and local civil society has on states regarding human rights implementation: Thomas Risse, Stephen C. Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink (eds), The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Thomas Risse, “Transnational Actors and World Politics”, in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons (eds), Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage, 2002), pp. 255–274.

13. See Krücken, op. cit., p. 9.

14. See Raimund Hasse and Georg Krücken, Neo-institutionalismus (Bielefeld: Transcript, 1999), p. 13; Julian Dierkes and Matthias König, “Zur Ambivalenz der universalistischen Weltkultur—Konfliktbearbeitung und Konfliktdynamik aus Sicht des neuen soziologischen Institutionalismus”, in Thorsten Bonacker and Christoph Weller (eds), Konflikte der Weltgesellschaft: Akteure—Strukturen—Dynamiken (Frankfurt am Main: Campus, 2006), p. 131.

15. Meyer and Scott, op. cit., p. 47.

16. Matthias Koenig, “Institutional Change in the World Polity: International Human Rights and the Construction of Collective Identities”, International Sociology, Vol. 23, No. 1 (2008), p. 99.

18. Koenig, op. cit., p. 101.

17. See also Emilie Marie Hafner-Burton and Kiyoteru Tsutsui, “Human Rights Practices in a Globalizing World: The Paradox of Empty Promises”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 110, No. 5 (2005), pp. 1373–1411.

19. See Thorsten Bonacker, “Inklusion und Integration durch Menschenrechte. Zur Evolution der Weltgesellschaft”, Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2003), pp. 121–139; Kathryn Sikkink, “Human Rights, Principled Issue-networks, and Sovereignty in Latin America”, International Organization, Vol. 43, No. 2 (1993), pp. 411–441.

20. Rosemary Nagy, “Transitional Justice as Global Project: Critical Reflections”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 2 (2008), p. 275.

21. See Naomi Roht-Arrazia and Javier Mariezcurrena (eds.), Transitional Justice in the Twenty-first Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

22. Undine Kayser-Whande and Stephanie Schell-Faucon, “Transitional Justice and Civilian Conflict Transformation. Current Research, Future Questions”, CCS Working Papers, No. 10 (2009), p. 8.

23. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).

24. The term “macro-criminality” (Makrokriminalität) refers to crimes of a certain scope and encompasses, in Jägers notion, not only crimes against humanity, genocide and other mass human rights violations but all forms of collective violence inconceivable as an individual, isolated crime but instead as a collective action that cannot be separated into special frames and contexts. We use the term here simply to encompass all forms of state-driven collective violence. For more see Herbert Jäger, Makrokriminalität. Studien zur Kriminologie kollektiver Gewalt (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989).

25. For a critical discussion of this relationship between transitional justice and peace see Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Justice as Peace? Liberal Peacebuilding and Strategies of Transitional Justice”, Global Society, Vol. 21, No. 4 (2008), pp. 579–591.

26. See Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, Camille Pampell Conaway and Lisa Kays, “Transitional Justice and Reconciliation”, in Inclusive Security, Sustainable Peace: A Toolkit for Advocacy and Action (London and Washington, DC: International Alert & Women Waging Peace, 2004); Bronwyn Anne Leebaw, “The Irreconcilable Goals of Transitional Justice”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 1 (2008), pp. 95–118.

27. See, for example, Kayser-Whande and Schell-Faucon, op. cit.; Tuti G. Teitel, “Transitional Justice Genealogy”, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2003), pp. 69–94.

28. See Krücken, op. cit., pp. 12–13.

29. For detailed accounts see Karl D. Jackson (ed.), Cambodia 1975–1978. Rendezvous with Death (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989); Ben Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime. Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79, 3rd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

30. John D. Ciorciari, The Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Phnom Penh: DC-Cam, 2006), pp. 15–16.

31. See Howard J. De Nike, John Quigley and Kenneth J. Robinson, Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).

32. Human Rights Watch, 24 August 1999, available: <http://www.hrw.org/en/news/1999/08/24/un-should-insist-international-standards-khmer-rouge-trial> (accessed 9 June 2010).

33. Vannath Chea, “Reconciliation in Cambodia: Politics, Culture and Religion”, in David Bloomfield, Teresa Barnes and Luc Huyse (eds), Reconciliation after Violent Conflict (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2003), p. 50.

34. The last elections were held in 1966. Although they can still be considered to be free elections, they involved massive repression against leftist parties.

35. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992).

36. Jason Franks and Oliver P. Richmond, “Liberal Hubris? Virtual Peace in Cambodia”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2007), p. 28. Cambodia was one of the first state-building missions of the United Nations, followed by many others (e.g. the UN administrations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor).

37. See, for example, Sriram, op. cit.; Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond (eds), New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding (New York: United Nations University Press, 2009).

38. Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif.

39. The most important Cambodian NGOs in the field of transitional justice and their founding dates are (in no particular order): Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam, est. 1995), Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC, est. 1991), Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC, est. 1994), Center for Social Development (CSD, est. 1995), Khmer Institute for Democracy (KID, est.1992), Youth for Peace (YfP, est. 1999) and the Women's Media Center (WMC, est. 1993).

40. See also David Roberts, “The Superficiality of Statebuilding in Cambodia: Patronage and Clientelism as Enduring Forms of Politics”, in Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk (eds), The Dilemmas of Statebuilding: Confronting the Contradictions of Postwar Peace Operations (London: Routledge, 2009), pp. 149–171.

41. Thomas Hammarberg, How the Khmer Rouge Tribunal was Agreed: Discussions between the Cambodian Government and the UN (Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2001), available: <http://www.dccam.org/Tribunal/Analysis/How_Khmer_Rouge_Tribunal.htm> (accessed 1 April 2009).

42. See Kathryn E. Neilson, They Killed all the Lawyers: Rebuilding the Judicial System in Cambodia (Victoria, BC: Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives, 1996), p. 1.

43. Of course, transitional justice processes after the end of the dictatorships in Latin America (starting in the 1970s) and the apartheid regime in South Africa (in the 1990s) are prominent exemptions to the post-communist notion. However, it seems that their impact on transitional justice at a world polity level was time-delayed.

44. Craig Etcheson, “A ‘Fair and Public Trial’: A Political History of the Extraordinary Chambers”, in Stephen Humphreys and David Berry (eds), The Extraordinary Chambers (New York: Justice Initiatives, 2006), p. 7.

45. Of course, there are other elements of world polity through which states gain legitimacy, for example adopting liberal democracy and a free-market economic approach/capitalism. The point is that the “presence” and proximity of the mass crimes of the past in Cambodia make transitional justice an obvious choice.

46. We are referring here to the official self-description of the Cambodian state and also pointing to the gap between self-description as democratic on the one hand, and the clientelistic “reality” on the other (for the latter see Oliver Hensengerth, Transitions of Cambodia: War and Peace, 1954 to the Present, Project Working Paper No. 2 (Duisburg: INEF, 2008), available: <http://www.postwar-violence.de/files/wp2_cambodia_transitions.pdf> (accessed 9 June 2010)). Our point here is that a symbolic commitment to democratic values and human rights by adopting the institutionalised models of the nation-state at the global level opens the way for civil society to make claims on several topics related to the notion of a democratic state (e.g. a woman's right to increase her quality of life).

47. See Suzannah Linton, Reconciliation in Cambodia (Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia, 2006), available: <http://dccam.org/Publication/Monographs/Reconciliation.pdf> (accessed 9 June 2010), p. 59. However, this changed over time. With the establishment of the court, co-operation between NGOs and the court became institutionalised and mutually beneficial. For an overview of the current state of this relationship see Wendy Lambourne, “Outreach, Inreach and Local Ownership of Transitional Justice: Cambodian Participation in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal”, Paper presented at the annual meeting of “Theory vs. Policy? Connecting Scholars and Practitioners”, New Orleans, 2010, available: <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/1/4/7/7/p414779_index.html> (accessed 9 June 2010).

48. CHRAC is an umbrella organisation of various Cambodian human rights NGOs.

49. See Wendy Lambourne, “Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding after Mass Violence”, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2009), p. 38.

50. See Linton, op. cit., p. 55.

51. See Silke Studzinsky, “Nebenklage vor den Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)—Herausforderung und Chance oder mission impossible?”, Zeitschrift für internationale Strafrechtsdogmatik, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2009), p. 45.

52. Statement by the Victims Unit, 4 February 2008, available: <http://www.cambodiatribunal.org/CTM/Victim_Unit_Press_Release.pdf?phpMyAdmin=8319ad34ce0db941ff04d8c788f6365e&phpMyAdmin=ou7lpwtyV9avP1XmRZP6FzDQzg3> (accessed 10 April 2010).

53. Ibid.

54. Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (2008), available: <http://www.chrac.org/eng/pdf/02_04_2008_CHRAC%20Press%20Release%20on%20First%20Victims%20Join%20in%20ECCC%20PTC%20Hearing.pdf> (accessed 10 April 2010).

56. John W. Meyer, “The Changing Cultural Content of the Nation State”, in George Steinmetz (ed.), State/Culture: New Approaches to the State after the Cultural Turn: State Formation after the Cultural Turn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), pp. 136–137.

55. Again, this is not to say that local actors were not heavily involved (as we outlined above). However, the actions were all strongly influenced by world polity models, from, for example, forensic methods of truth finding (understood as scientific fact finding) to outreach models.

57. For the current discussion see Michael Saliba, Civil Party Participation at ECCC: Overview, Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, available: <http://cambodiatribunal.org> (accessed 9 June 2010).

58. Kenny, as quoted in Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, “Whose Justice? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up”, Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 35, No. 2 (2008), p. 281.

59. Leebaw, op. cit., pp. 104–105.

60. Teitel, op. cit., p. 90.

61. Frank and Meyer, op. cit., p. 87.

62. See Thorsten Bonacker, “Debordering by Human Rights. The Challenge of Postterritorial Conflicts in World Society”, in Stephan Stetter (ed.), Contradictions! Territorial Conflicts in World Society (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 21–36.

63. It might seem arguable whether or not Cambodia's ruling party, the CPP, is actually communist. Its organisational structure (e.g. a standing committee) and good relations with self-declared communist states such as China and Vietnam speak in favour of this. However, its party program, self-presentation and actual politics clearly point the other way, embracing formally “the multi-party and liberal democratic system as the fundamental basis of its policy and activities” and actually running the country in an autocratic-capitalist style.

64. Kiyoteru Tsutsui, “Redressing Past Human Rights Violations: Global Dimensions of Contemporary Social Movements”, Social Forces, Vol. 85, No. 1 (2006), p. 334.

66. Leebaw, op. cit., p. 113.

65. Koenig, op. cit., p. 96.

67. Robert Meister, “Human Rights and the Politics of Victimhood”, Ethics and International Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 2 (2002), p. 99.

68. See Boli and Thomas, Constructing World Culture, op. cit.