It has been claimed - though not proved - that victims will be benefited by participation in international criminal tribunals. This article interrogates this claim in the context of victim participation at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), commonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Based on interviews with Cambodian victims and Tribunal affiliates, it examines why and how the Tribunal permits victims to intervene as les parties civile, pulling together the normative and legal basis for this mode of victim participation. This article does not purport to generalize with confidence about Cambodian victims in general, let alone all victims of mass atrocity. Instead, it simply seeks to move beyond vague speculations that victim participation in international trials is always therapeutic, and suggest a new indigenized victimology that the Tribunal should explore as the long-awaited trials of the Khmer Rouge unfold.
- KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL,
- CAMBODIA,
- VICTIMOLOGY,
- INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNALS,
- INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mahdev_mohan/11/
Awarded the 2009 Carl Mason Franklin Jr. Prize for best scholarly work in the field of international law by Stanford Law School