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ABSTRACT
Human rights organisations (HROs) are the principal arbiters of the social problems that are documented and decried as human rights issues. They do so, however, within specific contexts, and through lenses that render some social and political problems more visible and amenable to human rights advocacy than others. This article examines the case of a controversial atrocity denial law passed in Cambodia in 2013 to reflect on how rights-based organisations think about and intervene in the social and political worlds that they inhabit. The law was a response to statements from an opposition leader that questioned the authenticity and ‘staging’ of a key site of atrocities perpetrated under the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979), circumscribing the opposition’s ability to tap popular strands of anti-Vietnamese feeling. Rights groups, in theory, were confronted with a classical dilemma within human rights: the curtailment of free expression against the potential harm of hate speech. I situate the responses of HROs in context and explore three questions about the work and worldviews of HROs: the politicisation of human rights techniques and interventions; the (in)visibility of forms of structural violence in relief of abuses by the state; and the solubility of rights-based advocacy within prevailing populisms.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2015 British Sociological Association annual conference, ‘Law Crime and Rights’ stream.
I would like to thank Hannah Miller, Robin Redhead and two anonymous reviewers for their generous comments on the paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Note on contributor
Peter Manning is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bath. Peter's research explores the politics of memory, human rights and transitional justice.
Notes
1 B. Kiernan, The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
2 D.P. Chandler, Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
3 R. Hughes, ‘Nationalism and Memory at the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide Crimes, Phnom Penh, Cambodia’, in Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory, ed. S. Radstone and K. Hodgkin (London: Routledge, 2003), 175–92.
4 E.R. Gottesman, Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge: Inside the Politics of Nation Building (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 44.
5 R. Hughes, ‘Dutiful Tourism: Encountering the Cambodian Genocide’, Asia Pacific Viewpoint 49, no. 3 (2008): 318–30.
6 M. Eang, and P. Zsombor, ‘Kem Sokha Says S-21 Was Vietnamese Conspiracy’, Cambodia Daily, May 27, 2013.
7 ibid.
8 M. Eang, ‘Vietnamese Man Killed in Racist Mob Attack’, Cambodia Daily, February 14, 2014.
9 ‘Statement by UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation for Human Rights in Cambodia’, May 27, 2013, www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13359&LangID=E (All URLs last accessed 29 and 30 August, 2016 unless otherwise stated).
10 T. Fawthrop, ‘Cambodia: Human Rights Defender Threatened For Opposing Hate Speech’, Index on Censorship Blog, January 20, 2014. https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/01/cambodia/.
11 Royal Government of Cambodia, (Draft) Law Against Non-Recognition of Khmer Rouge Crimes Committed During the Democratic Kampuchea Period, June 12, 2013.
12 A. Seiff, ‘The Denial Law Dilemma’, Phnom Penh Post, June 7, 2013.
13 C. Fournet, ‘Remembrance and Anti-Denial Legislation’ (policy paper, European Centre for International Affairs, 2013).
14 S. Vong, and D. Boyle, ‘Kem Sokha’s Remarks Questioned’, Phnom Penh Post, May 27, 2013.
15 N. Kuch, ‘S-21 Survivor Sues Sokha for Defamation’, Cambodia Daily, June 15, 2013.
16 Al Jazeera, ‘Cambodians Protest Over Khmer Rouge Denial’, June 9, 2013, www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2013/06/201369171925861642.html (last accessed August 30, 2016).
17 Article 19, ‘Cambodia: Law Against Non-Recognition of the Crimes Committed During Democratic Kampuchea’ (2013), 7www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/37127/13-06-27-cambodia-LA.pdf (last accessed August 30, 2016).
18 The last decade has seen the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front push through several pieces of legislation that are intended to prevent genocide denial, ‘minimisation’ and combat ‘genocide ideology’ pertaining to the 1994 genocide. Nearly 2000 prosecutions have followed, and the laws have been critically appraised as vaguely worded political instruments that curtail dissent: see N. Jansen, ‘Denying Genocide or Denying Free Speech? A Case Study of the Application of Rwanda’s Genocide Denial Laws’, Northwestern University Journal of International Human Rights 12, no. 2 (2014). It is beyond the scope of this article to offer a substantial comparison of these cases, and further research is needed.
19 Amnesty International, ‘Open Letter: Freedom of Expression and the Proposed Law to Criminalize Denial of the Crimes Committed by the Khmer Rouge’ International Secretariat to H.E. Heng Samrin, President of the National Assembly, 2013, www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ASA23/003/2013/en/ (last accessed August 29, 2016), 4.
20 Cambodian Centre for Human Rights, ‘Defending the Defenders: Security for Cambodian Human Rights Defenders’, Country Report, (2013), www.article19.org/data/files/medialibrary/37113/Cambodia-Defending-the-Defenders-2013-ENG.pdf (last accessed August 30, 2016).
21 ‘Kem Sokha’s Remarks Questioned’, Phnom Penh Post, May 27, 2013.
22 ibid.
23 ABC Radio Australia, ‘Cambodia Outlaws Denial of Atrocities Committed by Brutal Khmer Rouge Regime’, June 11, 2013, www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-07/cambodia-outlaws-denial-of-khmer-rouge-atrocities/4741136 (last accessed August 30, 2016).
24 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Articles 19 and 20, www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx (last accessed August 29, 2016).
25 See G. Stanton, ‘Ten Stages of Genocide: Classification Symbolization Discrimination Dehumanization Organization Polarization Preparation Persecution Extermination Denial’ (2013), www.genocidewatch.org/genocide/tenstagesofgenocide.html (last accessed August 29, 2016).
26 Specifically in relation to transitional justice mechanisms, see C. E. Loyle, and C. Davenport, ‘Transitional Injustice: Subverting Justice in Transition and Postconflict Societies’, Journal of Human Rights 15, no. 1 (2016): 126–49.
27 Hannah Miller and Robin Redhead, ‘Beyond Rights-Based Approaches’, International Journal of Human Rights (2017): this issue.
28 P. Gready, ‘Rights-Based Approaches to Development: What is the Value-added?’ Development in Practice 18, no. 6 (2008): 735–47.
29 L.H. Piron, ‘Rights-based Approaches and Bilateral Aid Agencies: More than a Metaphor?’, IDS Bulletin 36, no. 1 (2005): 19–30.
30 S. Gruskin, D. Bogecho, and L. Ferguson, ‘Rights-Based Approaches to Health Policies and Programs: Articulations, Ambiguities, and Assessment’, Journal of Public Health Policy 31, no. 2 (2010): 129–45.
31 B. Fortman, ‘Poverty as a Failure of Entitlement: Do Rights-Based Approaches Make Sense?’, in International Poverty Law: An Emerging Discourse, ed. L. Williams (London: Zed Books, 2006).
32 See, for example, A. Cornwall, and C. Nyamu-Musembi, ‘Putting the “Rights-Based Approach” to Development into Perspective’, Third World Quarterly 25, no. 8 (2004): 1415–37.
33 Gready, ‘Rights-Based Approaches’.
34 C. Mercer, ‘NGOs, Civil Society and Democratization: A Critical Review of the Literature’, Progress in Development Studies 2, no. 1 (2002): 5–22; see esp. pp. 7–9.
35 See K. Engle, ‘From Skepticism to Embrace: Human Rights and the American Anthropological Association from 1947–1999’, Human Rights Quarterly 23, no. 3 (2001): 536–59 for a discussion of the American Anthropological Association’s instructive but fraught engagements with conceptions of rights.
36 S. Moyn, The Last Utopia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).
37 C. Douzinas, ‘Postmodern Just Wars and the New World Order’, Journal of Human Rights 5, no. 3 (2006): 355–75.
38 W. Brown, ‘“The Most We Can Hope For … ”: Human Rights and the Politics of Fatalism’, The South Atlantic Quarterly 103, no. 2 (2004): 451–63.
39 A. de Waal, ‘Human Rights, Institutional Wrongs’, in Rethinking International Organizations: Pathology and Promise, ed. D. Dijkzeul, and Y. Beigbeder (New York: Berghahn Books, 2003).
40 Brown, ‘The Most We Can Hope For … ’, 461.
41 C. Moon, ‘What One Sees and How One Files Seeing: Human Rights Reporting, Representation and Action’, Sociology 46, no. 5 (2012): 876–90.
42 Moon, ‘What One Sees’, 5–9.
43 Moon, ‘What One Sees’, 5.
44 Moon, ‘What One Sees’, 10–11.
45 Moon, ‘What One Sees’, 9.
46 Moon, ‘What One Sees’, 10.
47 Moon, ‘What One Sees’, 12.
48 M. Krause, The Good Project: Humanitarian Relief NGOs and the Fragmentation of Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).
49 ibid, 5.
50 S.E. Merry, ‘Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle’, American Anthropologist 108, no. 1 (2006): 38–51.
51 T. Parks, ‘The Rise and Fall of Donor Funding for Advocacy NGOs: Understanding the Impact’, Development in Practice 18, no. 2 (2008): 213–22.
52 Interview with International HRO staff, London, January 2015. All interviews were conducted in confidentiality, and the names of interviewees are withheld by mutual agreement.
53 Interview with Journalist at English-language newspaper, Phnom Penh, January 2015.
54 S. Ahmed, ‘Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism’, Borderlands 3, no. 2 (2004).
55 Interview with Cambodian former HRO staff, Phnom Penh, January 2015.
56 Interview with Director, Human Rights Advocacy Organisation, Phnom Penh, March 2016.
57 Amnesty International, ‘Open Letter: Freedom of Expression and the Proposed Law’.
58 ICCPR articles 19 and 20.
59 Interview with Journalist at English-language newspaper.
60 M. Koskenniemi, ‘Between Impunity and Show Trials’, Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law Online 6, no. 1 (2002): 1–32.
61 P. Manning, ‘Reconciliation and Perpetrator Memories in Cambodia’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 9, no. 3 (2015): 386–406.
62 ibid, 16.
63 In November 2010, during the annual water festival Om Tuk, 347 people were killed after panic broke out on a small bridge connecting an island to central Phnom Penh.
64 Interview with International HRO senior staff, Phnom Penh, April 2015.
65 Interview with Cambodian HRO staff, Phnom Penh, January 2015.
66 Interview with Cambodian former HRO staff, Phnom Penh, January 2015.
67 Interview with Cambodian HRO leader, Phnom Penh, January 2015.
68 Interview with Cambodian HRO staff, Phnom Penh, January 2015.
69 Interview with Director, Human Rights Advocacy Organisation, Phnom Penh, March 2016.
70 P. Manning, ‘Governing Memory: Justice, Reconciliation and Outreach at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’, Memory Studies 5, no. 2 (2012): 165–81, 172.
71 S. Cohen, States of Denial: Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001).
72 Interview with Cambodian HRO field worker, Phnom Penh, March 2016.
73 S. Subedi, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Cambodia’ (Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2014).
74 D. Mech et al., ‘Longtime Rights Champion Gunned Down in Broad Daylight’, Phnom Penh Post, July 10, 2016.
75 Interview with Senior Cambodian HRO staff, Phnom Penh, March 2016.
76 Moon, ‘What One Sees’.
77 Krause, The Good Project.
78 Interview with President HRO, Phnom Penh, February 2015.
79 Brown, ‘The Most We Can Hope For … ’, 453.