Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Making Reparation for Khmer Rouge Crimes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

2014; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.2497839

1556-5068

Cheryl White,

Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography

From its inception the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) was considered a legitimacy risk as a UN supported transitional court because of its integration in the Cambodian court system, and the possibility that the national government would interfere in the Court’s trials. Indeed, funding crises, corruption allegations and opposition from the Cambodian government in two of its latest investigations buffeted the Court as it prosecuted its first two cases. Nevertheless, the Court was viewed positively by some commentators, because of its innovative victim participation and civil party reparations schemes. However, the high take up rate and procedural complexities of civil party participation brought action by the Court to amend both schemes. The revised victim participation and reparations regimes were given effect in the ECCC’s second case, the trial of Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, the two most senior surviving leaders of the brutal Khmer Regime in Cambodia from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979. The purpose of this article is to examine the background to the Court’s reparations ruling in Case 002/01 which enabled the civil parties to the criminal action to secure tangible moral and collective redress. It emphasises the participatory processes engaged throughout the trial to affect the reparations outcomes and highlights the changing perceptions of the local population as the Court adapted its procedures to its context.