Palmer - 2016 - Localizing International Criminal Accountability

International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Volume 16 (2016) 97–135
doi:10.1093/irap/lcv013 Advance Access published on 28 July 2015
Localizing international
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

criminal accountability
in Cambodia1
Emma Palmer*
School of Law, University of New South Wales, Kensington,

Australia
*E-mail: emma.palmer@unsw.edu.au
Accepted 23 June 2015
Abstract
Cambodia has ratified many international humanitarian and human rights
law treaties, including the Rome Statute. International crimes are also
included in national legislation and have been prosecuted before the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Based on that informa-
tion alone, it may seem that Cambodia’s leaders strongly support and have
adopted international norms relating to prosecuting international crimes
of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Yet the reality is
more complex. This article considers how different understandings of
the characteristics of international criminal accountability have influenced
the establishment of these mechanisms for prosecuting international
crimes in Cambodia. It argues that a linear account of these developments
as deriving from externally driven norm diffusion is incomplete. Instead,
Cambodia’s experience suggests that local and international actors have
adapted and localized the norms surrounding international criminal law to
develop new laws and mechanisms to prosecute international crimes.
1 The author wishes to thank Sarah Williams, Andrew Byrnes, and the anonymous reviewers
for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Vol. 16 No. 1

© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press in association with the
Japan Association of International Relations; all rights reserved.
For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
98 Emma Palmer
1 Introduction
Cambodia has ratified many international humanitarian and human
rights law treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court (2002), and has even criminalized and prosecuted international
crimes within its national legal system.2 On 7 August 2014, the Extraordin-

ary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) sentenced two former
senior Khmer Rouge leaders to life imprisonment, having previously
sentenced one other perpetrator to life imprisonment for crimes against
humanity and war crimes. In this second judgment, the ECCC Trial
Chamber found Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea guilty of perpetrating
crimes against humanity between 17 April 1975 and December 1977 – the
first phase of the Democratic Kampuchea regime (also referred to as the
Khmer Rouge) that ended on 7 January 1979. These developments might
suggest that Cambodia’s leaders strongly support the prosecution of inter-
national crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Yet the verdict was considered by many to be ‘too little, too late’, or even
‘justice denied’ (Human Rights Watch, 2014; Im, 2014). Certainly, this judg-
ment does not alter concerns about contemporary human rights violations
in Cambodia, which have been publicized via communications to the
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor regarding ‘land grabbing’
and violence against protestors (Springer, 2010, 2015; Global Diligence,
2014; Kimseng, 2014; Human Rights Watch, 2015). Nor did the judgment
do much to rescue the ECCC’s deteriorating reputation amidst accusations
of corruption, political interference, delays, and procedural unfairness – as
well as its failure to be a positive role model for the Cambodian judicial
system (see e.g. Ainley, 2014a; International Center for Transitional Justice,
2014). However, the development of Cambodia’s legal framework for pros-
ecuting crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide suggests neither
complete rejection nor acceptance of international standards for responding
to international crimes.
2 For example, the Convention on Genocide (ratified 14 October 1950), Geneva Conventions
I–IV (ratified 8 December 1958), the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women (5 October 1992) and its Optional Protocol (13 October 2010), the
Convention against Torture (15 October 1992) and its Optional Protocol (30 March 2007),
Additional Protocols I and II (14 January 1998), the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(both 26 May 1992), the Rome Statute (11 April 2002), and the Convention on Enforced
Disappearances (17 June 2013).
Localizing international criminal accountability in Cambodia 99
This raises several questions for scholars of international criminal law and
international relations interested in how norms – or inter-subjective ideas
about what is the ‘appropriate behavior’ in a certain context (Sikkink, 2011,
11) – may come to be internalized within states. What does Cambodia’s ex-
perience suggest about how norms concerning how to respond to internation-

al crimes might (not) be internalized in different circumstances? How do
various actors attempt to reconstruct ideas about international criminal
accountability to correspond to dynamic national, or ‘local’,3 experiences –
both when producing new laws and mechanisms, but also when enforcing
them? These raise additional questions: what exactly are these norms and
why should particular understandings of international criminal accountability
come to be internalized or adapted in the first place?
The terms ‘international criminal accountability’, ‘law’, or ‘justice’ often
refer to substantive legal principles in international criminal law, such as spe-
cific crimes, modes of responsibility, or principles such as the importance of
fair trials. These phrases can also encompass various ideas about the need to
‘end impunity’, (Preamble, ‘Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
(2002)’) normally through criminal procedures. Despite this diversity, Mégret
identifies the existence of an ‘international criminal justice project’ that
‘includes a series of recognizable features, including the centrality of individual
guilt, the need to respect the rights of the defence both procedurally and sub-
stantively, a commitment to international institutions of criminal justice, and a
rhetoric that foregrounds the needs of ‘humanity’ over sovereignty’ (2014, 18).
This version of international criminal accountability might be considered
‘normalized’, particularly since the establishment of the ICC (Epstein et al.,
2014; Megret, 2015, 81) and as a concept that is taught or transferred to
states through a process of internationally-driven norm diffusion. Yet, as
Springer suggests – in relation to ‘neoliberalisms’ – ‘to focus exclusively on
such external forces risks producing an overgeneralized account of a ubiqui-
tous and singular [concept] … which is insufficient to account for the profu-
sion of local variations …’ (Springer, 2011, 2554). Put differently, it fails to
acknowledge the possibilities for legal pluralism in the sense of ‘complex
norm-ordering from multiple sources’ (Steer, 2015, 59). This article suggests
3 Homogeneous localities rarely, if ever, exist in culturally constructed communities of inter-

secting ethnic, socio-economic, gender, racial, and political identities, for example, see Merry
(2006, 135). ‘Local’ and ‘Localization’ are used in this paper in a general manner usually
meaning ‘national’ or ‘domestic’ – recognizing that local actors do not speak for all inhabi-
tants of the relevant state.
100 Emma Palmer
that, in practice, this norm of international criminal accountability is con-

tested and dynamically constructed by multiple actors with diverse social
understandings of the content and purpose of ‘international criminal ac-
countability’ (see Sikkink and Kim, 2013; Epstein et al., 2014; Payne and
Sikkink, 2014, 11–12; Reyes, 2014).

Cambodia’s experience suggests that ratifying the Rome Statute, having a
legal framework enabling the prosecution of international crimes, and even
conducting international crimes trials domestically may not demonstrate
that state actors completely accept the norm of international criminal ac-
countability. Focusing on the ECCC’s relative success or failures, or Rome
Statute ratification, thus sidelines the question of what such an international
criminal accountability norm might include and the process by which it
came to be considered, in the constructivist sense, ‘appropriate’ for a given
situation (Fehl, 2004, 365; Epstein, 2014). Instead, this article suggests that
to develop these laws and mechanisms, international and local actors in
Cambodia have engaged in an ongoing process of adaptation and localiza-
tion of, rather than ‘wholesale acceptance or rejection’ of the norm of
international criminal accountability (Acharya, 2004, 239).
This article begins, in Section 2, by sketching some of the contributions of
international relations literature to understanding the spread of ideas within
Southeast Asia and identifies this article’s contribution to that scholarship. It
then employs a case study of Cambodia’s international crimes mechanisms to
explore how being attentive to both local and international perceptions of
international criminal accountability can be a useful way to understand legal
outcomes. There has been significant historical inquiry into the crimes perpe-
trated during the period of Democratic Kampuchea (e.g. Vickery, 1984;
Becker, 1998; Chandler, 2008; Kiernan, 2008). Others have undertaken
extensive political analysis of the establishment of the ECCC (e.g. Brown and
Zasloff, 1998; Etcheson, 2004; Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005). The remainder of
this article draws on this literature, along with legal instruments, newspaper
articles, and semi-structured interviews, to examine how various mechanisms
for prosecuting international criminal law, including the ECCC, ICC, and
domestic legal provisions, have been developed in Cambodia.
Following a brief review of historic international crimes trials in Southeast
Asia and Cambodia in Section 3, Section 4 then considers how the preex-
isting, or pre-localization, concepts of sovereignty, reintegration into the
international community and stability underpinned initial approaches to
international criminal law in Cambodia, whereas, as discussed in Section 5,
international actors held different expectations. Sections 6 and 7 explore how

local and international actors, including civil society organizations, engaged
in a process of adaptation in which these different views of international crim-
inal law have altered and converged. Finally, Section 8 demonstrates how
these processes resulted in the amplification of these perspectives in the form

of new laws and institutions, including Cambodia’s ECCC and ‘Criminal
Code’. It argues that this has not involved linear norm diffusion by external
actors that has taken place within a power-free vacuum, as if along a course
from rejection to internalization. Instead, over time, conceptions of inter-
national criminal accountability have been resisted, reframed, and adapted
by national and international actors. That is, both local and international
norms and actors explain the nonlinear process of the diffusion international
criminal law.
This analysis is significant in its contribution to the emerging literature
concerning the localization of norms in Southeast Asia (e.g. Capie, 2008;
Collins, 2013; Davies, 2013), by considering for the first time the process of
resistance toward and adaptation of the norm of international criminal ac-
countability through Acharya’s localization lens (Acharya, 2004),4 and by
partly redressing the imbalance of international criminal law and transi-
tional justice literature, which has typically focused on Europe and Africa
(Jeffery and Kim, 2014, 3). In turn, this article aims to spur a broader
dialog concerning the possible implications of localized international
criminal accountability.
2 Constructing accountability
International relations studies of Southeast Asia have traditionally drawn
on rationalist or realist accounts that emphasize material and global secur-
ity concerns to explain state behavior (Busse, 1999; Katsumata, 2004, 240;
Acharya and Stubbs, 2006). There is a diverse range of realist perspectives,
but most focus on economic, material, and coercive factors, while rational-
ist approaches suggest that states will act in the manner that best satisfies
their costs, benefits, and consequential interests (Oberdorster, 2008;
McGreal, 2013). In recent decades, scholars have increasingly appreciated
that non-material social factors can help explain state actions (Davies,
4 For an anthropological account of ‘localization’ and transitional justice, though not applying
Acharya’s framework, see Shaw and Waldorf (2010).
102 Emma Palmer
2013, 373). Initially, ‘mainstream’ constructivist perceptions (Weber, 2013)

provided a more complex account of how different widely shared inter-
subjective ideas, or ‘norms’ (Ruggie, 1998; Finnemore and Sikkink, 2001,
392), are internalized within states through processes of persuasion and so-
cialization (see Risse et al., 1999; Jetschke, 2010; Hafner-Burton, 2013).

These perspectives tended to focus on how global norms can be adapted
to become acceptable to local audiences. However, this risks setting ‘up
an implicit dichotomy between good global/universal norms and bad
regional/local norms’ (Acharya, 2014, 185).
This emphasis upon considering how actors interact in diverse social con-
texts is echoed in a variety of international relations and international law
fields. For example, scholars have analyzed how security considerations are
constructed within the context of power relationships and cultural social net-
works (e.g. Kent, 2006, 345; Peou, 2009a). Geographers have drawn atten-
tion to the way discourse can be deployed to construct ‘spaces’ that legitimize
certain behavior, including mass killings in Cambodia (Tyner, 2008, 3).
Advocates of legal pluralism have sought to move beyond depictions of a
‘clash of legal cultures’ toward considering how international criminal law
‘operates in the context of a dynamic interaction between many fields’ (Steer,
2015, 59–60). In a related vein, Acharya (2004) invited scholars to move
away from an external/good, internal/bad dichotomy by understanding how
state and international constructions of norms may converge and be resisted
by various actors through a process of localization. This model has been
used to explain how ASEAN states have adapted norms regarding collective
security (Acharya, 2004), HIV/AIDS (Collins, 2013), and the trade in small
arms (Capie, 2008), through a process in which credible local actors reframe
and reconstruct norms to converge with local beliefs.
In response to Checkel’s plea for constructivists to ‘theorize the varying
processes through which social construction occurs’ (Checkel, 1999, 343),
Acharya has described localization as a multi-directional process involving
phases of resistance, local initiative, adaptation, and amplification in the
form of new laws and institutions. Localization depends on ‘the legitimacy
and authority of key norm-takers, the strength of prior local norms, the
credibility and prestige of local agents, indigenous cultural traits and tradi-
tions, and the scope for adaptation presented by foreign norms’ (Acharya,
2004, 269). These dynamics can lead toward congruence between external
and local understandings of a particular concept. However, this process is
not linear – states resist and reshape ‘norms’ in an interchanging manner so
as to reveal their subjectivity. For instance, Zimmerman (2014) explains how

different norms may be resisted, reshaped/adapted, or accepted during
various legal activities: through discourse about possible actions, when
adopting laws, and in the different ways laws are implemented. This article
explores what insights this ‘localization’ framework might reveal about the

development of international criminal laws and mechanisms in Cambodia.
3 International crimes trials in Southeast Asia

and Cambodia
Cambodia ratified the Rome Statute on 11 April 2002, adopted the law to
establish the ECCC on 27 October 2004 and a Criminal Code containing
international crimes commenced effect in 2010. There were several influ-
ences behind these developments, including: domestic and international
political interests; government leaders who emphasized stability and re-
integration; and an experience of international criminal accountability as
a set of procedures that had typically been used in politically charged con-
texts. The remainder of this paper examines the extent to which these laws
and mechanisms might be ‘amplifications’ of a nonlinear process of resist-
ance, local initiative, and adaptation of local and international norms sur-
rounding the prosecution of international crimes. First, an overview of the
historical context helps to explain the contrasting Cambodian and inter-
national perceptions of international criminal accountability.
Violence and crimes were perpetrated across much of Southeast Asia
during the period of colonial occupation (Nakamura, 1999), while foreign
domination restricted local contributions during the formative period of
modern international law surrounding the establishment of the United
Nations (Sornarajah, 2001). Nearly 4,000 individuals were tried before
Allied military commissions in Asia, including the International Military
Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), following WWII (Piccigallo, 1979, xi).
The freshly independent Philippines was the only Southeast Asian state
with a judge on the 11-member bench of the IMTFE, despite a whole
section of the hearing being devoted to crimes in Southeast Asia. There
were concerns about procedural fairness (Boister and Cryer, 2008), legal
complications, and the Tribunal’s prosecutions were considered selective
(Tanaka et al., 2011, xxix–xxx). The IMTFE was also affected by domestic
politics in Japan and Cold War geopolitics (Sellars, 2011, 193). Justice
Pal’s dissenting IMTFE judgment rebuked the hypocrisy of charging
104 Emma Palmer
crimes against peace following colonial domination. He considered the

IMTFE to represent the ‘manifestation of power’, or formalized ven-
geance (1999, 21). In this way, Justice Pal affiliated the aim of securing
sovereign independence with an opposition to internationally managed
trials – a sentiment recently echoed in attempts to label the ICC as a

‘colonial court’ (BBC, 2014).
The post-colonial period was also one of upheaval in many Southeast
Asian states. In Cambodia, a civil war arose in the mid-1960s when the
Communist Party of Kampuchea launched an insurgency against Prince
Sihanouk’s rule. Armed conflict was ongoing before and subsequent to Lon
Nol seizing power in 1970 (Ciorciari and Heindel, 2014, 15) and the United
States of America (US) extensively bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam,
or American, War (Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005, 5–6; Kiernan, 2008, 22).
From 1975, the Democratic Kampuchea regime brutally enforced its plan
for an agrarian revolution until Vietnamese forces entered Cambodia in
January 1979.
These conflicts took place at the center of Cold War politics. Cambodia
was considered the setting for a proxy war between Vietnam and China at a
time when the US was seeking to normalize relations with China (Becker,
1998, 289). As a result, ‘The United Nations and Western powers did little in
response to mounting evidence of atrocities, as the Vietnam Syndrome took
hold in Washington and other key capitals … China did worse, emerging
as the Pol Pot regime’s main external sponsor …’ (Ciorciari and Heindel,
2014, 15). After 1979, the Vietnam-backed Peoples Republic of Kampuchea
(PRK) government faced ongoing internal conflict with Khmer Rouge forces
and staunch opposition from much of the world. Meanwhile, a Khmer
Rouge coalition, the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea,
held Cambodia’s seat at the United Nations until 1992.
There were very few international crimes trials across Southeast Asia
during the Cold War period, but one exception was the PRK’s People’s
Revolutionary Tribunal (Tribunal). The Tribunal tried two senior leaders
of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot, and Ieng Sary, in 1979. The five-day
trial was heard before a single presiding judge, 10 ‘people’s assessors’, 53
international guests, and hundreds of locals (Gutman, 2013). However, the
proceedings were largely rejected as a ‘show trial’ (Group of Experts for
Cambodia, 1999, para 65), having been held in absentia with inadequate
defence (Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005, 47). The trial was also carried out
under the direction of the PRK – an occupying power opposed by the
West. There was a selective focus (on two individuals), and the trials were
complemented by amnesties for the remaining Khmer Rouge members
(Ainley, 2014b, 147).
There is, therefore, a history of international crimes trials in Southeast
Asia that is profoundly political. Moreover, the critiques of these international

crimes trials as imposing double standards, procedural inconsistencies, and
involving domestic and international political motivations and interference
continue to be directed toward international criminal law and the ECCC
today (see Gegout, 2013; Human Rights Watch, 2014). The Tribunal pro-
ceedings served to justify Vietnam’s ongoing occupation of Cambodia, but
also had a longer-term impact by helping to establish the ‘dominant narrative
of the Khmer Rouge era, with a handful of absent, demonic perpetrators and
millions of innocent victims’ (Chandler, 2000, 73). This had the effect of fun-
neling the guilt for the Democratic Kampuchea crimes toward the ‘Pol Pot –
Ieng Sary clique’ (Gottesman, 2003, 78). Meanwhile, a UN Commission on
Human Rights report in the immediate aftermath of the DK regime was not
pursued further, because there was no support from the US or China (Becker,
1998, 445).
Eventually, the 1991 Paris Peace Agreement established the United
Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), which had a broad
rehabilitation mandate. Elections in 1993 led to a power-sharing agreement
between current Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party and
FUNCINPEC, led by one of Prince Sihanouk’s sons Norodom Ranariddh.
There was still minimal international support for prosecuting crimes com-
mitted during Democratic Kampuchea. Even ‘during the two years of peace
negotiations in Paris from 1989, no Western states supported such trials’
(Ainley, 2014b, 145), because of Cold War political priorities and to avoid
being implicated as responsible for ‘Cambodia’s sorrows’ (Becker, 1998, xv).
China also continued to oppose an international tribunal (Etcheson, 2004,
193). According to scholars Brown and Zasloff, calls during these discus-
sions for a reference in the peace agreement to the ‘genocide’ during the
Democratic Kampuchea period were watered down as a concession to the
Khmer Rouge forces (1998, 83; Kiernan, 1993, 230). Indeed, despite early
indications of interest in some form of accountability for the Khmer Rouge
leadership (Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005, 88), following the 1993 elections
Hun Sen and Ranariddh reportedly competed for the support of Khmer
Rouge defectors (Brown and Zasloff, 1998, 250; Peou, 1998), including
through the controversial use of amnesties, until Hun Sen led a coup in
106 Emma Palmer
1997. One month earlier, Hun Sen had written to the United Nations
seeking its assistance in prosecuting international crimes committed during
Democratic Kampuchea (United Nations General Assembly, 1997).
4 International criminal accountability in Cambodia:

sovereignty, security, and reintegration
The negotiations to establish the ECCC thus commenced in the midst of deep
domestic political turmoil and international geopolitical tensions. Acharya
argues that an important precursor to localization is the ‘strength of prior
local norms’ (Acharya, 2004, 248). These ‘pre-localization norms’ are existing
views about what is the correct response or behavior in a particular situation,
but are not fixed or uniformly held. The following analysis explores how ideas
about international criminal accountability have been adapted in a nonlinear
process involving resistance, local initiative, adaptation, and amplification in
the form of new laws – which may in turn be understood in new ways when it
comes to enforcing them (Zimmermann, 2014). The next sections therefore
do not proceed in a consistently chronological manner, although they begin by
considering what Cambodia’s leaders propounded to be their ‘pre-localization’
interpretations of international criminal accountability.
Following the armed conflict in Cambodia, which extended into the
19900 s, the immediate priorities were to establish sovereign legitimacy in
the international community, peace, stability, reconciliation, and economic
development. As Hun Sen explained in 2001, the country’s ‘“win-win”
policy [was] to recognize that there is no winner in waging a destructive
war and revenge will never bring peace to the country and its people’. In
the same statement, Hun Sen was ‘conscious about our undeniable obliga-
tion to find justice to the people’, but cautioned that there was a need to:
weigh carefully between the need for rendering justice to the victims
and closing the dark pages of our history, on the one hand, and … the
policy of national reconciliation and the newly restored, albeit fragile
peace, on the other. In this important process, we should rely upon the
principle of the respect for national sovereignty.’ (Hun Sen, 2001).
These goals of sovereignty and reconciliation were framed as interrelated
and complementary. The win-win strategy operated alongside a ‘triangle
strategy’ that involved Cambodia’s ‘rapid integration into the international
community’, ‘building peace, restoring stability and maintaining security for
the nation’ and promoting ‘development based on the … implementation

of key reform programs’ (Hun Sen, 2002).
These strategies emphasized protecting Cambodia’s sovereignty while sup-
porting its reintegration into the international community to allow for eco-
nomic development, which was intrinsically linked to restoring peace and

stability. The extent to which these statements were reflected in actual actions
is debatable, but the argument here is that each of these principles did have a
bearing on whether and how to respond to Democratic Kampuchea crimes.
First, having directly experienced the fickle nature of international support,
the Cambodian government tried to balance the tension between inviting
international criminal justice approaches and protecting sovereignty. As one
example, in June 2001, Hun Sen announced Cambodia’s plans to become
the first ASEAN state to ratify the Rome Statute, which would provide the
ICC with jurisdiction over any future international crimes committed in the
country (Coalition for the International Criminal Court, 2001, 2). Days later,
responding to suggestions that the UN would review Cambodian legislation
for the ECCC, Hun Sen reportedly suggested that rather than trying to ‘force
Cambodia to do what it wants’, the UN should ‘stay calm and be quiet, let
the Cambodians work’ (Sisovann, 2001). Thus, international criminal ac-
countability was conditionally welcomed, so long as it would facilitate reinte-
gration while protecting and respecting Cambodia’s independence – and
thereby the authority of its new leaders.
Second, material factors also provided the context for establishing the
ECCC and ratifying the Rome Statute. It is estimated that only six to ten
lawyers survived the Democratic Kampuchea regime (Donovan, 1993,
445). There was no judicial capacity and no institutions with set proce-
dures for responding to mass crimes. After decades of conflict and isola-
tion, there was also an urgent need for international aid, which had been
practically difficult and politically complicated to deploy during the Cold
War period (Gottesman, 2003, 83). Establishing a tribunal may have been
viewed as one, though not necessarily the only, way to access additional
international funding, just as the ‘triangle strategy’ linked integration into
the international community to development priorities. This was particu-
larly likely in the uncertain period following Hun Sen’s coup, when states
such as the US needed to demonstrate to Congress that Cambodia was a
valid aid recipient (Etcheson, 2004).
However, Cambodia received aid from states both opposed to and in
favor of an international tribunal. Thus, it is not clear whether Cambodia’s
108 Emma Palmer
financial incentives were to accept a tribunal established by the UN Security

Council or whether it could continue to accept aid from China and others
that opposed establishing an international criminal tribunal (Fawthrop and
Jarvis, 2005, 178).5 This situation meant that Cambodia’s government could
receive financial benefits as long as the Cambodia’s leaders stalled while

both groups courted its favor (Etcheson, 2004, 203). With the state’s mater-
ial factors encouraging Cambodia’s leaders not to make a decision about
how to respond to international crimes, other motivations were required in
order to agree to establish a tribunal.
How these motivations were shaped by norms and self-interest lies at the
crux of rational choice and constructivist differences and the manner in
which structures and agents are mutually constituted. Springer argues that
legal reform in Cambodia came to be viewed ‘as a developmental panacea’
whereby respect for legal norms could facilitate foreign investment, which
would largely benefit ‘local elites’, foreign investors, and the development
community (Ear, 2010; Springer, 2011, 2556). From that perspective, em-
bedding rule of law principles through international crimes trials may have
served the financial self-interest of some local and international agents. Yet
this does not fully explain why state actors came to consider international
criminal law mechanisms as the ‘appropriate’ response in these circum-
stances, since other development activities may have fulfilled these interests.
Third, the government’s response to these material factors was arguably
influenced by its leaders’ preexisting ideas about the role of criminal justice
responses to conflict, in particular the political nature of international
crimes trials and the need to prioritize ‘building peace, restoring stability and
maintaining security’. This formula invites reference to Cambodia’s national
security6 particularly in light of its conflict and isolation from the internation-
al community until the early 1990’s (Kiernan, 1993, 208) and the competing
pressures from the US, China (Kiernan, 1999), Thailand, and Vietnam,
played out in Cambodia in this time (Peou, 1995; Simon, 1995, 12).
Yet, members of the Cambodian government would have witnessed the
way in which the 1979 Tribunal proceedings sought to enhance the stand-
ing of the PRK regime – as well as its pitfalls. Thus, consistent with the
5 The International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have received
significantly more funding than the ECCC, though it has been more expensive than those tri-
bunals on a cost per trial basis (Ciorciari and Heindel, 2014, 30).
6 With thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation. On the importance of security,
including as a motive for behavior, see Buzan (1984); Katzenstein (1996); McSweeney (1999).
‘win-win’ and ‘triangle’ policy, Hun Sen publicly placed a premium on en-
suring that accountability would lead to stability in a manner that would
also reinforce Cambodia’s domestic and international sovereign legitimacy.
Thus, in 1999 Hun Sen continued to emphasize that ‘[n]ational reconcili-
ation and peace are indispensable requirement[s] of the Cambodian nation

and people …’ (Hun Sen, 1999, 1). This meant there ‘must be due consid-
eration before taking any action, avoiding any action that would jeopard-
ize national reconciliation in Cambodia. We need both peace and justice’
(emphasis in original, Hun Sen, 1999, 2). The contribution of the localiza-
tion lens is to consider how within their political and material context,
local actors came to understand international criminal accountability as a
suitable endeavor, while also using discourse to influence others’ under-
standings of what this norm would involve. In practice, this meant that to
facilitate the peaceful reintegration of the remaining Khmer Rouge forces
and ensure national security, prosecutions would need to be selective.
Kent, a social anthropologist, has convincingly argued that understand-
ings of security in Cambodia are ‘socially and culturally positioned’ includ-
ing in Buddhist tradition and ‘are therefore inescapably plural’ (Kent, 2006,
345). It is also arguable that international criminal justice might clash with
regional ‘non-legalistic traditions that offer alternatives to the pursuit of
peace’ than trials (Peou, 2009b, 121). Thus, some scholars suggest that the
idea that only senior leaders were responsible for Democratic Kampuchea
crimes might reinforce certain cultural understandings of accountability in
Cambodia, shaped by a history of patron–client relationships and influenced
by Buddhist notions of a ‘stay in your place’ mentality (Marks, 1999; Urs,
2007, 79–83). On the other hand, this perspective of Theravada Buddhism as
essentially passive is also contested (see e.g. Haynes, 2014) and Cambodia’s
colonial history makes identifying traditional power structures and values
complicated (Vickery, 1984, 177). In practice, the interaction between norms
of ‘Karmic Justice’ and international criminal legal accountability in ‘this
life’ has been a theme of ECCC commentary and continues to warrant ana-
lysis (see Section 7 regarding reparations and Chhang, 2002; Ear, 2010; Gray,
2013; Zucker, 2013).7
There are certainly other domestic reasons for the ECCC’s focus on pros-
ecuting senior leaders and Cambodia’s significant control over proceedings
(Peou, 2009b). Hun Sen’s preference was to prosecute only the top Khmer
7 With thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation.

110 Emma Palmer
Rouge leaders, given the widespread involvement of the population in the

criminal conduct (Ciorciari and Heindel, 2014, 30), or at least with some as-
sociation to the previous regime. This included members of the current gov-
ernment including Hun Sen himself who had defected from Democratic
Kampuchea as a low-level member of the Khmer Rouge (International

Crisis Group, 2000, 30). Moreover, most individuals in Cambodia had been
personally affected by the Democratic Kampuchea regime in some manner.
On the other hand, the 1979 Tribunal had already identified and labeled a
‘Pol Pot clique’, providing a narrative that could support the norms of rec-
onciliation alongside the government’s stability.
It is valid to ask whose security Hun Sen had in mind in pursuing the
prosecution of a select few. ‘Human security is a malleable concept’ (Hynek
and Chandler, 2010, 6) but in this context would consider how international
criminal accountability seeks to protect ‘the individual as the referent object
of security’ (Peou, 2009a, 2), taking into account the variety of threats to in-
dividual security in Cambodia in recent decades.8 Yet as Peou argues, in
Cambodia, ‘the incumbent leaders were afraid that any genuine trials would
pose a threat to their [own] political legitimacy and personal security’ (Peou,
2009b, 122). On the other hand, trials could be used as a ‘big gun’ to threat-
en political opponents.9
In both cases, despite the apparent emphasis on security, peace, and re-
conciliation, international crimes trials were not necessarily intended to
‘emancipate’ individual Cambodians but aimed at securing its leaders’
stable political control. These are potentially, but not certainly, comple-
mentary aims (see Hynek and Chandler, 2010, 3). Indeed, Springer has
argued that neoliberalism and democratic reforms were in fact associated
with ongoing authoritarianism and violence (Springer, 2009, 2015). This
helps explain the Cambodian leaders’ preference for a version of inter-
national criminal law that would buttress, rather than undermine, their
own security and for an interpretation of security that would encompass
international crimes trials.
Thus, as negotiations regarding the tribunal accelerated following the
request for UN assistance, some of the most influential and credible local
8 With thanks to the anonymous reviewer and editor. For further discussion of the relationship
between human security and international law, see Oberleitner (2005), human rights, see
Dunne and Wheeler (2004), and constructivism, see Newman (2001). With respect to inter-
national criminal justice, see Peou (2009b).
9 Author’s interview with a civil society actor, Phnom Penh, 29 November 2014.
actors in Cambodia, namely Hun Sen and current Deputy Prime Minister,
Sok An, were at least open to pursuing trials – an important precursor for
localization. As negotiations continued, while there were differences of
opinion within the Cambodian Peoples’ Party about creating a tribunal
with at least some international elements, a majority appear to have sup-

ported this option (Etcheson, 2004, 184) and in practice decision-making
responsibility rested in few hands (Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005, 187).
International crimes trials offered opportunities to contribute to all
three arms of the ‘triangle strategy’: apart from providing one avenue
for material benefits such as foreign aid, accountability could help
peacefully distance the government from the Democratic Kampuchea
regime and provide ‘a way for Cambodia to become a fully accepted
member of the international community’ (Etcheson, 2004, 184; see also
Hun Sen, 2002).
It was partly with these concerns in mind that Cambodia had sought
UN assistance in establishing a criminal tribunal to prosecute former
Khmer Rouge leaders. These ‘pre-localization’ notions of sovereignty, re-
integration, and stability were summarized in Deputy Prime Minister
Sok An’s speech to Cambodia’s National Assembly when it eventually
ratified the Agreement between the UN and Cambodian government to
establish the ECCC. He pointed out that ‘even before [seeking UN assist-
ance], our Government has held to the following principles as its guiding
lights’. He then emphasized three aims of the ECCC: first, ‘to provide
justice’ to victims; second ‘to maintain peace, political stability and na-
tional unification’, and third, ‘respect for our national sovereignty’ (Sok
An, 2003).
Over time these priorities changed. Khmer Rouge forces lost strength
and influence, possibly because of the Government’s amnesty policy, re-
ducing the impetus to seek justice in order to maintain the peace and
providing space for the government to later emphasize the potential for
international criminal prosecutions to be destabilizing (Ainley, 2014b,
147). However, the core preference for a version of international crim-
inal accountability that would support national sovereignty through local
control remained in opposition to the understandings of international
criminal accountability held by other important actors – namely represen-
tatives of the UN, civil society groups, and governments such as the US
and China.
112 Emma Palmer
5 International criminal accountability: individual

guilt, fairness, and international independence
International actors were motivated by different conceptions of international
criminal accountability and its purpose. The US Congress passed the
Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in 1994, committing ‘to support efforts to

bring to justice members of the Khmer Rouge’ (‘Cambodian Genocide
Justice Act 1994’). However, US diplomats did not embark on any ‘concrete
thinking about a tribunal … until the capture of Pol Pot became plausible’
and a potential diplomatic problem of how to prosecute him became foresee-
able, but then worked towards establishing a tribunal with both domestic and
geopolitical considerations in mind (Scheffer, 2012, 345). Some UN actors
may have been motivated by the opportunity to focus attention on the
individual guilt of Cambodian perpetrators, rather than UN’s earlier inter-
national inaction to prevent or respond to the commission of international
crimes (Etcheson, 2004, 201). However, states that had previously supported
Democratic Kampuchea were uncomfortable with pursuing prosecutions.
China’s UN delegates emphasized the principle of noninterference in states
(Scheffer, 2012, 378) and ‘pursued an aggressive lobbying strategy, attempting
to kill the tribunal before it [was] born’ (Etcheson, 2004, 194) while Thailand
emphasized the importance of Cambodia consenting to any prosecutions
(Scheffer, 2012, 375). Other states including Russia, Brazil, and Latin
American states also opposed establishing an international tribunal, particu-
larly if it proceeded without Cambodia’s consent (Scheffer, 2012, 370).
In 1998, the General Assembly asked the Secretary-General to consider
appointing a group of experts to ‘evaluate the existing evidence and
propose further measures, as a means of bringing about national reconcili-
ation, strengthening democracy and addressing the issue of individual
accountability’ (United Nations General Assembly, 1998). At this stage,
the goal of reconciliation was consistent with Hun Sen’s request. However,
many international actors argued that any prosecutions must take place in
an ‘independent’ manner, which was framed as meaning internationally
managed, rather than being independent of international interests.
Thus, at least initially, the US preferred a Security-Council established
international tribunal, and the Group of Experts recommended an independ-
ent criminal institution that was largely internationally controlled, ideally
along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda (Group of Experts for Cambodia, 1999). This
option was not popular for a variety of political, legal, and practical
reasons (Scheffer, 2012). However, due to concerns about the potential for
(Cambodian) political interference in the trials, Secretary-General Kofi
Anan’s preference remained for significant international control over any
legal proceedings. The UN pulled out of negotiations at one stage, arguing

that the court must demonstrate ‘independence, impartiality and objectiv-
ity’, through external management (‘Statement by UN Legal Counsel
Hans Corell: Negotiations between the UN and Cambodia regarding the
establishment of the court to try Khmer Rouge leaders’, 2002). When the
General Assembly, with Cambodian support (Fawthrop and Jarvis,
2005),10 asked the Secretary-General to resume negotiations, it also
emphasized that he ensure the ECCC would operate with ‘justice, fairness
and due process of law’ and noted ‘the importance of ensuring the imparti-
ality, independence and credibility of the process’, which should operate
in an ‘efficient and cost-effective’ manner (United Nations General
Assembly, 2003).
As discussed in Section 1, this discourse about international crimes being
‘independent’ (from internal political interference, rather than international
geopolitics), ‘fair’ (in the sense of respecting international human rights
standards), and the focus on individual guilt (rather than the economic,
social, and political structures that may have facilitated the Democratic
Kampuchea’s criminal regime) are features of normalized international crim-
inal accountability. However, the Cambodian experience demonstrates that
not all states supported this version of the norm, or sought the same model
to prosecute international crimes. Moreover, mainstream constructivist per-
spectives would suggest that externally driven norm diffusion would result in
Cambodia internalizing the norm of international criminal accountability by
carrying out independent (internationally managed) prosecutions for inter-
national crimes. Instead, as the following sections explain, this norm was
reconstructed in the Cambodian context under internal and external influ-
ence to also reflect the principles of sovereignty, stability, and reintegration.
6 Resistance and contestation in Cambodia

Acharya argues that pre-localization can involve contestation between local
and new external norms. He suggests that this ‘contestation may lead to
10 With thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation.

114 Emma Palmer
localization if some local actors begin to view the external norms as having a
potential to contribute to the legitimacy and efficacy of extant institutions
without undermining them significantly’ (Acharya 2004, 241). While
Cambodia’s leaders were initially reluctant to support an international crim-
inal tribunal except to ‘defeat the Khmer Rouge’ (Hammarberg, 2001), fol-

lowing extensive and interrupted discussions with a range of parties, the
Cambodian negotiators secured a court that was consistent with its priorities
of legitimizing the new government and ensuring stability. In contrast, even
with a ‘supermajority’ rule requiring the agreement of at least one internation-
al judge with any Chamber’s majority decision, the UN Secretary-General
remained unconvinced that a court without a majority of international judges
could align with an understanding of international criminal accountability
being independent (Secretary General, 2003, paras 29–30).
However, other international actors also adjusted their perceptions of inter-
national criminal accountability, for various reasons. The US negotiators con-
sidered that ‘a perfect outcome’ – meaning international control – may not be
possible (Scheffer, 2012, 392) and became more willing to support a ‘hybrid’
option. The UN continued to equate impartial justice with due process, fair-
ness, and international management of the trial process (Secretary General,
2003, 7). China’s representatives emphasized noninterference and sovereignty.
The split between the UN, various states, and Cambodia’s views of how inter-
national criminal law might operate illustrates how difficult it is to define the
content of international norms in practice.
Arguably any normalized understanding of how international criminal
accountability might be delivered in Cambodia was obscured by these dif-
ferent local and international understandings of its purpose. Rather than
the establishment of the ECCC demonstrating that Cambodia’s leaders
had internalized or completely rejected UN, US, or Chinese views of inter-
national criminal accountability, it reflected their perspective of how prose-
cutions might contribute to local norms of sovereignty, stability, and
legitimacy. Urs argues that the ECCC ‘is so poorly suited to provide a
sense of justice, promote the rule of law or foster reconciliation it is hard to
imagine that [it] was in fact designed to meet those goals’ (Urs, 2007, 86).
Apart from the goal of reconciliation, this conclusion is quite consistent
with a context where the ECCC was aimed at achieving peace, security,
and national unity. Instead, the Court represents an adaptation of the
international criminal accountability norm in light of local priorities.
7 Local civil society mediation

This analysis has so far concentrated on state actors. However, Acharya
argues that localization is most effective with local initiative and medi-
ation, particularly by local non-state actors who ‘borrow and frame exter-
nal norms in ways that establish their value to the local audience’ – by

acting as ‘norm entrepreneurs’ (Acharya, 2004, 251; Sikkink, 2011). In the
19900 s, a thriving civil society network of newly established Cambodian
NGOs emerged as aid began to flow into Cambodia alongside UNTAC
(Toon, 2004, 229; Sperfeldt, 2012a, 150). Acharya has argued that ‘[l]ocal
norm entrepreneurs are likely to be more credible if they are seen by their
target audience as upholders of local values and identity and not simply
‘agents’ of outside forces or actors …’ (Acharya, 2004, 248). Accordingly,
local NGOs, which largely drew on international funding, pursued ‘objective’
strategies. For example, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam),
which was originally established by Yale University’s Genocide Program until
becoming an independent NGO in 1997, aimed to seek out, organize, and
maintain the substantial archives of Democratic Kampuchea. This made it
difficult to ignore the scale of the crimes, which indirectly contributed to the
impetus for some kind of accountability mechanism (Etcheson, 2004, 201),
effectively by creating new ‘spaces’ for discourse (Tyner, 2008, 15). As it com-
piled its document library, DC-Cam began to gain local legitimacy by build-
ing public awareness, including through its magazine, ‘Searching for Truth’.
However, it was authoritative local state actors – the Cambodian gov-
ernment negotiators, predominantly Sok An – who pursued the negotia-
tions to establish the ECCC through diplomatic channels. International
actors such as the Group of Experts, Ambassador Hammaberg, and diplo-
mats from a variety of states including the US, China, Japan, Australia,
India, and ASEAN states all influenced both Cambodia and UN actors
during the drawn-out discussions (Hammarberg, 2001; Scheffer, 2012;
Ciorciari and Heindel, 2014, 33). There were few opportunities for local or
international NGOs to directly engage in dialog during this process, in-
cluding with the Cambodian government (Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005,
187), and their offer to assist with drafting the ECCC’s legislation was re-
portedly rejected (Jeldres, 2002).
Throughout these negotiations, while local NGOs did provide some
‘moral support to the UN’ (Peou, 2009b, 114), it was mainly international
NGOs that publicly emphasized the need for external control over
116 Emma Palmer
proceedings, especially given the risks of political interference (Human

Rights Watch, 2003; Fawthrop and Jarvis, 2005, 203) and supported the
UN’s decision to pull out of negotiations (Etcheson, 2004, 200; contrast
International Crisis Group, 2000). Thus, the mediation of local norm entre-
preneurs was initially less important in establishing the ECCC than

Acharya’s localization framework might suggest. The lack of avenues for
local norm entrepreneurs to ‘localize a normative order and … to legitimize
and enhance that order by building congruence with outside ideas’
(Acharya, 2004, 249) could help explain the extended duration and animos-
ity of the ECCC negotiations.
Over time however, locally based civil society groups have played a sig-
nificant role in shaping the ECCC’s proceedings and in framing discus-
sions about accountability for international crimes in Cambodia more
broadly. NGOs such as Youth for Peace, Cambodian Human Rights and
Development Association (ADHOC), and Transcultural Psychosocial
Organisation have monitored proceedings and supported the unprecedented
involvement of victims, or civil parties, in the ECCC trials by providing
social services and assisting with their legal representation. Civil society has
played a significant role in supporting the ECCC’s mandate for judicial and
non-judicial reparations measures (Sperfeldt, 2012b) – which is itself argu-
ably an adaptation to preexisting Cambodian laws (White, 2014a). These
projects have included memorials and public exhibitions, as well as initiatives
that explicitly claim to be ‘culturally adapted’ (Transcultural Psychosocial
Organization, 2015), including testimonial therapies involving Buddhist
monks, which the Court described as ‘a ceremony conducted in accordance
with the victims’ religious or spiritual beliefs and cultural practices’ (‘Case
002/02 Judgment’, 2014, para 1131).
NGOs have also worked with court outreach services, drawing on their
local knowledge to publicize the ECCC’s activities in a community-
relevant manner (Sperfeldt, 2012a; Stegmiller, 2014). This has included at
least some attempt by ADHOC to discuss the ICC and the Criminal
Code’s new inclusion of international crimes, despite the reality that com-
munity ‘participants seem[ed] more interested in the Khmer Rouge past
than in a distant institution in The Hague’ (Raab and Poluda, 2010, 2).
The ECCC’s nationally administered Victims’ Support Service has also
brought Cambodians to observe court proceedings and visit the Tuol Sleng
(S-21) museum, which has itself been described as a site for predominantly
international (tourist) ‘refiguring of the world’ – that is, a space for intersect-
ing local and international experiences (Hughes, 2008, 328).
Local NGOs have also adapted their strategies. Civil society groups have
worked to raise local and international awareness about issues that the
Court has inadequately considered, such as the prosecution of sexual vio-

lence and forced marriage (De Langis, 2012). For instance, from 2011 the
Cambodian Defenders Project has organized a series of Women’s Hearings,
where survivors and witnesses publicly shared accounts of sexual violence
committed during the Khmer Rouge regime. This advocacy has included
making submissions to international bodies such as the Committee on the
Elimination of Discrimination against Women (Cambodian Defenders
Project, 2013a,b).
Finally, international NGOs such as Open Society Justice Initiative
have drawn attention to the effect of Cambodian political interference and
corruption on ECCC proceedings (2012, 2013). However, for several years,
local NGOs have also drawn attention to the importance of judicial in-
dependence (Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC),
2011), recently criticizing the Cambodian government’s ‘attempts to inter-
fere with the investigations’ in the most recent Cases 003 and 004 (dis-
cussed below) (CHRAC, 2015).
In reality, international links have remained important for Cambodian
NGO’s, making it difficult to draw clear boundaries between ‘local’ and
‘international’ norm entrepreneurship. The ECCC is predominantly inter-
nationally funded, either through the UN or by donor states contributing
to Court’s national component (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of
Cambodia, 2015). In that context, it is not surprising that ECCC repara-
tions projects have been developed and implemented with international
partners such as UN Women and the German Development Service.
Further, many Cambodian NGO’s rely significantly upon international
donor funding and engagement (Dosch, 2012; Sperfeldt, 2012a, 154).
These close relationships extend to initiatives relating to international
criminal accountability subsequent to the Democratic Kampuchea period.
For example, Forum Asia credited its network members including
Cambodian organizations ADHOC and the Cambodian League for the
Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO), as well as
the European Union, Norwegian Embassy, and others for having ‘paved the
way’ for Cambodia’s ratification of the Rome Statute (FORUM-ASIA,
2001). In 2005, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH),
118 Emma Palmer
with the support of the European Union, held a round table with ADHOC
and LICAHDO to discuss the implementation of the Rome Statute,
framing this as an initiative to help bring Cambodian law ‘fully into line
with the obligations under the Statute’ in a ‘spirit of cooperation’
(International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), 2006, 6). ADHOC

held a subsequent workshop on the tenth anniversary of the Rome Statute’s
entry into force in 2012 (ADHOC, 2012). Attendees included academics,
civil society representatives, and ECCC Court staff, but government repre-
sentatives were notably absent. This intersection between international aca-
demia and Cambodian civil society suggests the existence of ‘transnational
advocacy networks’ (Keck and Sikkink, 1998) and demonstrates the import-
ance of holding loose understandings of ‘local’ and ‘international’ as
general labels (see Merry, 2006, 135; Shaw and Waldorf, 2010, 6).
There also appear to be growing links between international criminal
accountability, transnational civil society advocacy, and contemporary
politics (see Un, 2013). In recent years, several groups have submitted com-
munications to the Office of the Prosecutor for the ICC arguing that
members of Cambodia’s political elite were guilty of international crimes.
In 2013, Radio Free Asia reported that the Khmer National Democratic
Front, based in Denmark, had accused Hun Sen of various crimes largely
outside the ICC’s temporal jurisdiction (Yun and Lipes, 2013). Then the
opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) announced plans
for another complaint, assisted by the former Head of Defence Support
Section at the ECCC, Richard Rogers, addressing the violent suppression
of garment workers during January 2014 strikes (Sokchea, 2014).
Separately, in March 2013, US lawyer Morton Sklar suggested that Hun
Sen had aided and abetted genocide through obstructing the ECCC’s Case
003 and 004 prosecutions and committed systematic crimes during the
January 2014 riots (Crothers, 2014).
The outcome of these communications remains to be seen, but the
Cambodian government has so far avoided comment, other than to deflect
the CNRP plans as a political and ineffectual ‘joke’ (Ritthy, 2014; White,
2014b). Rather than securing ICC prosecutions, these predominantly inter-
national initiatives appear to attempt to undermine the CPP’s professed
ability to peacefully maintain national stability (see above). In this manner,
the subjectivity of ‘international criminal justice’ provides a space for refram-
ing a particular domestic concern with the taint of international criminality,
by suggesting, as one of the communications does, that certain violations
have ‘pushed this situation beyond the boundaries of human rights abuses
and domestic crimes’ (Global Diligence, 2014). As Acharya suggests, non-
state actors have tried to reconstruct the norms surrounding the prosecution
of international crimes ‘to fit with local beliefs and practices’ – particularly
the importance of stable and legitimate authority (Acharya, 2004, 251). The

effects of these communications on Cambodia’s relationship with the ICC
also remain unclear. The localization approach suggests Cambodia’s leaders
might respond to such communications in a manner that resonates locally,
perhaps by continuing recent attempts (described below) to reframe inter-
national criminal prosecutions as potentially destabilizing.
Overall, while credible local norm entrepreneurs did not play as critical
a role in localizing the norm of international criminal accountability
during the ECCC negotiations as Acharya’s framework might suggest,
their participation in the ECCC civil party participation, reparations, and
outreach processes are providing new avenues for locally relevant advocacy.
Further, many of the same NGOs that have worked with the ECCC have
taken on broader projects that relate to securing accountability for contem-
porary conduct that could be considered international crimes, including
by providing legal services and training, human rights monitoring, rule of
law initiatives, and work on implementing the Rome Statute (Cambodian
Center for Human Rights, 2014). Local NGOs have therefore continued
to advocate for international criminal accountability, often by engaging
international relationships, though they have also adapted their strategies
for changing political circumstances.
8 Adaptation and amplification: the ECCC

and criminal code
The localization framework suggests that rather than a state eventually
adopting external norms, ‘new instruments and practices are developed
… in which local influences remain highly visible’ (Acharya, 2004, 251).
The ECCC’s institutional structure and Cambodia’s international crimes
legislation reflect neither Cambodia’s adoption of external ideas about
international criminal accountability nor complete resistance to these
concepts. Instead, they reflect a degree of convergence. This is evident
in the ECCC’s ‘hybrid’ structure, whereby the Court is established by
Cambodian law, but there are both international and Cambodian staff and
procedures (Seiff, 2013). It is also displayed by the ECCC’s limited scope
120 Emma Palmer
to prosecute the senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea for crimes com-

mitted between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979. This compromise
reflected the government’s notion of prioritizing peace. Prime Minister
Hun Sen argued, as Ciorciari and Heindel put it, that ‘casting too wide a
net … would invite instability and jeopardize the government’s reconcili-

ation plan’ (Ciorciari and Heindel, 2014, 30), which suited the new govern-
ment’s ‘narrative of rescue’ (Ainley, 2014b, 149). While the UN had sought
a broader jurisdiction that could cover perhaps 20–30 defendants, this
narrow temporal scope was more comfortable for the foreign governments
implicated in the Cambodian conflicts, or that had supported the
Democratic Kampuchea regime. For all parties, this jurisdiction could
reflect one central tenet of the norm of international criminal accountabil-
ity, ‘the idea that certain individuals are particularly to blame’ (Megret,
2015, 84).
The ECCC has convicted three defendants to date and operates largely
within international fair trial standards. However, the ECCC’s structure
and operations have not been ideal against a normalized conception of
international criminal accountability. The ECCC has been heavily criti-
cized, including for its delays, expense, and failure to positively affect sur-
vivors or contribute to the non-recurrence of international crimes (Human
Rights Watch, 2014; International Center for Transitional Justice, 2014;
Ryan, 2014). Further, it demonstrates how a ‘danger of localizing transi-
tional justice … is that these mechanisms may inadvertently create a narra-
tive that localizes the origins and dynamics of a conflict and thereby
ignores the larger context in which it emerged’ (Hinton, 2010, 10). Apart
from the allegations of double standards and selective justice (McCargo,
2011, 617), ECCC trials have been delayed and faced procedural inefficien-
cies due to duplication and the employment of inexperienced national and
international staff (Ciorciari and Heindel, 2014, 192–194). These critiques
hint at the array of shifting priorities and perceptions that continue to
surround the ECCC and Cambodia’s approach to international criminal
accountability.
In recent years, there have been concerns about whether the ECCC will
proceed with Cases 003 and 004, with charges eventually laid only by the
international co-investigating judge against Meas Muth and Im Chaem
(in absentia) and Ao An in March 2015. The Cambodian government
opposes these additional prosecutions, which might cast a negative light
on other former Khmer Rouge cadre involved in Cambodian politics, to
the extent that it was said to be ‘openly obstructing the trials’ (Human
Rights Watch, 2013). Other international crimes mechanisms, including
the IMTFE, have confronted accusations of selective justice, although in
Cambodia these issues were possibly escalated by the domestic political
context. For example, a 2009 Cambodia Daily article quoted Hun Sen as

warning that undertaking further prosecutions ‘without thinking of peace
and national reconciliation’ could ‘make civil war’ (Vannarin and Gillison,
2009). This is emblematic of a conception of international crimes trials as
inherently political, but also – despite the original intention that inter-
national crimes trials would ensure stability – implies that international
crimes trials might undermine that balance. This is consistent with Hun
Sen and Sok An’s early caution that ‘justice’ should aim for a ‘win-win’
situation by securing stability only together with reintegration. The same
article quotes the Interior Ministry spokesman as saying the ‘Khmer
Rouge tribunal will be ended if it makes insecurity for the country because
stability is more important than the Khmer Rouge tribunal’.
These arguments demonstrate that norm diffusion is not unidirectional
but instead involves ongoing reconstruction. For instance, Hun Sen
opposed the ICC issuing the arrest warrant for President Al-Bashir on the
basis that it could affect peace negotiations in the Sudan, consistent with
Cambodia’s consistent emphasis on sovereignty and securing peace before
justice (Strangio, 2010). Yet the Cambodian government has attended ICC
Assembly of States Parties sessions, and despite problems with financing
the ECCC, Cambodia has paid its contributions to the ICC. Moreover, a
new Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code were approved in 2010
and 2007, respectively, to allow the prosecution of international crimes in
Cambodia’s domestic legal system. Ratifying the Rome Statute and imple-
menting these laws did not have a retrospective impact but may provide
avenues for future prosecutions and opportunities for advocacy and educa-
tion about international criminal accountability.
Still, the introduction of legislation for prosecuting international crimes
at the national level does not necessarily indicate the internalization of
norms of accountability, since ‘decoupling’ can occur where these laws are
not enforced (Goodman and Jinks, 2004, 649; Davies, 2013). Acharya says
little about the enforcement of new instruments or laws, but Zimmerman
prefers to see resistance, adaptation, or adoption as reoccurring in dis-
course over time, as successive laws are proposed, passed, and implemen-
ted (Zimmermann, 2014).
122 Emma Palmer
From that perspective, the failure to enforce new laws does not necessarily
suggest that norms have been entirely rejected. Instead, the implementation of
new laws is also a site for reshaping and reinterpreting local and external
norms across shifting time periods (Zimmermann, 2014, 9). For example,
Cambodia’s Criminal Code allows the prosecution of crimes against human-

ity, genocide, and war crimes where there is a link to Cambodian territory,
victims, or perpetrators (Book 2, Title 1, Criminal Code). It draws on the
Rome Statute provisions with only minor variations (see Meisenberg, 2014).
The Code even goes beyond the Rome Statute, for example by extending
criminal liability to ‘legal entities’ (see Articles 187, 192, and 198), which
aligns with local concerns about business and human rights (Community
Capacities for Development, ADHOC, Buddhism for Social Development
Action, & Building Community Voices, 2014).11 Whether these laws will be
enforced in a manner that resists or adapts the international norms surround-
ing international criminal law remains to be seen.
While Cambodia’s leaders have actively engaged with the concept of
implementing international criminal accountability, they have done so in a
locally adapted manner. This process is ongoing and has not proceeded in
one direction. Cambodia’s international criminal laws and mechanisms
were not only possible because of the narrow, but feasible, ‘fit’ between the
external and Cambodian government conceptions of international crimes
prosecutions, but also because the government and other actors have been
able to redefine the norms for responding to international crimes in light
of their various priorities. Cambodia’s approach to international criminal
accountability has therefore continued to reflect political dynamics and the
concepts of peace, stability, and noninterference.
9 Conclusion
This article has explored the development of international criminal ac-
countability in Cambodia, beginning with the context of the politically
charged WWII prosecutions in Southeast Asia. After a long period of dev-
astating armed conflict followed by Cold War apathy toward Khmer
11 In its report on implementing the Rome Statute, FIDH observed that France had (unsuccess-
fully) argued for the possible prosecution of private trading companies under the Rome
Statute and that French lawyers had helped prepare the draft text of the Code (International
Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), 2006, 49–50), so this may have reflected a level of
international influence rather than simply an adaption to local priorities concerning business
and human rights issues.
Rouge crimes, Cambodia’s leaders linked the prosecution of international

crimes to its goals of securing peace, security, reconciliation, and economic
reintegration. International actors including the UN instead argued that
international criminal law must be exercised impartially by external actors.
Eventually Cambodia’s government passed legislation to construct both a

new mechanism, the ECCC, and to alter its national Criminal Code to
allow international crimes to be prosecuted. However, this did not result
from Cambodia’s leaders internalizing external principles of international
criminal law. Instead, as suggested by the localization framework, these
mechanisms continue to reveal local influences and priorities – in particu-
lar, the use of international criminal law to secure the stability, sovereignty,
and development of the state.
The localization framework is not the only way to describe changing
attitudes toward international criminal law, but it is helpful for explaining
how Cambodia has neither entirely rejected nor adopted the ‘international
criminal justice project’. Cambodia’s greatest material incentive was argu-
ably to draw out the negotiations as long as possible, while it received aid
from both those opposing and supporting a court (Etcheson, 2004, 202),
but funding alone does not readily explain the internationalized structure
of the resulting mechanism. Moreover, realist and rationalist approaches
have difficulty explaining why states would ratify the Rome Statute, par-
ticularly in the absence of great power support for the ICC and since it will
rarely be in states’ own material or security interests to open their own gov-
ernments to potential external prosecution (Schiff, 2008, 65; Struett, 2008,
75; Peou, 2009b, 122). Still, as Cambodia’s experience suggests, it may
provide important signaling benefits (Simmons and Danner, 2010) that
could lead to economic opportunities. It is hoped this article may spur
further debate about the interaction between material and security con-
cerns and international criminal law norms.
A ‘mainstream’ constructivist perspective might argue that external
parties including the UN and US were able to persuade the Cambodian
government to pursue international criminal accountability through norma-
tive discourse in various forums and transnational advocacy by civil society
actors, all of which eventually persuaded the Cambodian government,
outside-in, to adopt a compromise that would allow it to be accepted as a
member of an international community against impunity (Keck and
Sikkink, 1998). However, the norms of international criminal law might be
considered to have been diffused and internalized in Cambodia if legislation
is taken as the only indicator or to have been rejected if the interference in
124 Emma Palmer
the ECCC’s activities is the primary focus, whereas the reality is much more
complex and dynamic.
Instead, the localization framework draws attention to the way in which
the interaction between different perspectives did not result in Cambodia
simply adopting the UN preference, which was predominantly for an inter-

nationally controlled tribunal. Instead, local actors adapted and trans-
formed an international concept for local use, while some international
actors changed their perception of what form of international criminal
justice might be ‘appropriate’. Cambodia’s leaders also adjusted their con-
ceptions of sovereignty and peace, which came to be understood as goals
that could be conditionally supported by international criminal account-
ability. The localization framework not only emphasizes local agency in
this process (Sikkink, 2013; Ring, 2014) but also highlights how local
actors can reshape the set of possible outcomes – in this case, resulting in
the development of the novel ‘hybrid’ structure of the ECCC and new
Cambodian laws to prosecute international crimes.
Acharya argues that the scope for adaptation and the strength of compet-
ing prior local norms can affect the possibilities for localization. Localization
of international criminal accountability in Cambodia involved periodic resist-
ance, as during the ECCC negotiations and the delayed Case 003 and 004
investigations. Yet it is also evident that the meaning of ‘international crim-
inal accountability’ is tantalizingly obscure and contingent, giving it con-
siderable scope for reshaping and reframing – and therefore localization.
International criminal accountability may connote peace and stability (as
Cambodia’s government sought both to distance itself from and reintegrate
former Khmer Rouge forces), or be constructed as conflicting with reconcili-
ation (if everyone associated with Democratic Kampuchea was prosecuted).
It might be considered inherently political, or as requiring ‘impartial’ or ‘in-
dependent’ justice – while such independence may be considered best served
by local or international control, depending on one’s perspective.
This subjectivity suggests that local adaptation can result in a failure to
secure complete alignment with the normalized understanding of inter-
national criminal accountability. Equally, an overly rigid or binary concep-
tion of international criminal accountability could restrict the potential for
understanding more nuanced responses. In Cambodia, this process of adap-
tation was not directed by international actors from the outside-in, or solely
by locals inside-out, but was multi-directional. Finally, credible local state
actors – government leaders – were crucial participants in this process, but
non-state actors have taken on a more important role in reframing justice

over time, including for the general public. In practice, these actors can re-
construct understandings of international criminal accountability, but they
do so in dynamic ways that muddy the boundaries between ‘local’ and
‘international’.

This first attempt to apply Acharya’s localization framework to the field
of international criminal law raises more questions than it seeks to answer.
First, there is room for comparative research. In what circumstances might
international norms of criminal accountability prevail in spite of attempted
local adaptations or result in local norms being exported internationally
through processes of subsidiarity (see Acharya, 2011)? And how do chan-
ging norms interact with power, security, and economic material factors in
those contexts? Second, how can this localization framework, which asserts
the importance of local and international norms and of credible local
actors, approach situations where there is no clear division between ‘local’
or ‘international’ perspectives, but a multiplicity of state and non-state
views? Finally, if understandings of international criminal law are inherently
subjective and contested, what is it about the normalized version, or any
version, of international criminal accountability that should be diffused or
adapted in the first place – and on what measure could international crim-
inal justice mechanisms be considered ‘appropriately’ adapted for a particu-
lar context? It seems the answers depend on who, when, and why you ask –
and a variety of theoretical perspectives and comparative empirical research
could shed light on these questions. Cambodia continues to face challenges
in securing criminal accountability for international crimes, indicating not
that the process of localization is incomplete but that it is always occurring
and moving between resistance, adaptation, and convergence.
References
Acharya, A. (2004) ‘How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization
and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism’, International Organization, 58
(2), 239–275.
Acharya, A. (2011) ‘Norm Subsidiarity and Regional Orders: Sovereignty,
Regionalism, and Rule-Making in the Third World’, International Studies
Quarterly, 55(1), 95–123.
Acharya, A. (2014) Rethinking Power, Institutions and Ideas in World Politics:
Whose IR? Abingdon: Routledge.
126 Emma Palmer
Acharya, A. and Stubbs, R. (2006) ‘Theorizing Southeast Asian Relations: an

introduction’, The Pacific Review, 19(2), 125–134.
ADHOC. (2012) Workshop – 10th Anniversary of the entry into force of the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court. http://www.adhoc-cambodia.org/?
p=1798 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).

Ainley, K. (2014a) Justifying Justice: Verdicts at the ECCC. http://justiceinconflict.
org/2014/09/16/justifying-justice-verdicts-at-the-eccc/ (5 July 2015, date last
accessed).
Ainley, K. (2014b) ‘Transitional justice in Cambodia: the coincidence of power
and principle’, in R. Jeffery and H.J. Kim (eds), Transitional Justice in the
Asia-Pacific, pp. 125–156. New York: Cambridge University Press.
BBC. (2014) Sudan President Bashir hails ‘victory’ over ICC charges. BBC News.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30467167 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Becker, E. (1998) When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge
Revolution. New York: Public Affairs.
Boister, N. and Cryer, R. (2008) The Tokyo International Military Tribunal – A
Reappraisal. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, M. and Zasloff, J.J. (1998) Cambodia Confounds the Peacemakers
1979–1998. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Busse, N. (1999) ‘Constructivism and Southeast Asian security’, The Pacific
Review, 12(1), 39–60.
Buzan, B. (1984) ‘Peace, power, and security: contending concepts in the study of
international relations’, Journal of Peace Research, 21(2), 109–125.
Cambodian Center for Human Rights. (2014) CCHR Briefing Note – November
2014: impunity in Cambodia. http://cchrcambodia.org/index_old.php?url=
media/media.php&p=analysis_detail.php&anid=63&id=5 (5 July 2015, date
last accessed).
Cambodian Defenders Project. (2013a) CDP Welcomes CEDAW recommenda-
tions to government on sexual violence during the Khmer rouge regime. http://
gbvkr.org/cdp-welcomes-cedaw-recommendations-to-government-on-sexual-
violence-during-the-khmer-rouge-regime/ (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Cambodian Defenders Project. (2013b) List of critical issues submitted to the com-
mittee on elimination of discrimination against women by Cambodian defenders
project (CDP) regarding sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Conflict in
Cambodia. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/Cambodian
DefendersProject_PSWG_Cambodia56.pdf (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Cambodian Genocide Justice Act 1994, 22U.S.C. 2656, Part D, Sections 571–574
(1994).
Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC). (2011) CHRAC
Expresses Concern over the Emerging Conflict between Co-Investigating Judges.
http://www.chrac.org/eng/CHRAC%20Statement%20in%202011/12_09_2011_
CHRACstatement%20on%20CIJ%20En.pdf (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Capie, D. (2008) ‘Localization as resistance: the contested diffusion of small arms

norms in Southeast Asia’, Security Dialogue, 39(6), 637–658.
Chandler, D. (2000) ‘Will there be a trial for the Khmer rouge?’, Ethics &
International Affairs, 14, 67–82.
Chandler, D. (2008) A History of Cambodia. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.

Checkel, J.T. (1999) ‘The constructivist turn in international relations theory’,
World Politics, 50(2), 324–348.
Chhang, Y. (2002) Cambodia Won’t Easily Find Justice on Its Own, Opinion. The
New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/14/opinion/cambodia-won-
t-easily-find-justice-on-its-own.html (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
CHRAC. (2015) CHRAC welcomes the most recent developments in Cases 003
and 004. http://www.adhoc-cambodia.org/?p=5085 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Ciorciari, J. and Heindel, A. (2014) Hybrid Justice: The Extraordinary Chambers
in the Courts of Cambodia (Law, Meaning, and Violence). Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Coalition for the International Criminal Court. (2001) ICC Update. http://www.
iccnow.org/documents/iccupdate20.pdf (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Collins, A. (2013) ‘Norm diffusion and ASEAN’s adoption and adaption of global
HIV/AIDS norms’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 13(3), 369–397.
Community Capacities for Development, ADHOC, Buddhism for Social
Development Action, & Building Community Voices. (2014) CAMBODIA: Stop
the Violence: A Call for Release, Investigation and Reparation, statement of 65
civil society organisations from Cambodia. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/
forwarded-news/AHRC-FST-005-2014 (5 July 2014, date last accessed).
Criminal Code of the Kingdom of Cambodia, English translation by Cheung, B.
(2011) Entered into force 10 December 2010. Translation. http://www.sithi.org/
admin/upload/law/Criminal_Code_Book_with_cover_Jan_2014.pdf (5 July
2015, date last accessed).
Crothers, L. (2014) Hun Sen Accused of Genocide in ICC Complaint. The
Cambodia Daily. http://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/hun-sen-accused-of-
genocide-in-icc-complaint-54669/ (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Davies, M. (2013) ‘ASEAN and human rights norms: constructivism, rational
choice, and the action-identity gap’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific,
13(2), 207–231.
De Langis, T. (2012) Asia-Pacific regional women’s hearing on gender-based violence
in conflict. http://gbvkr.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Asia-Pacific-Regional-
Womens-Hearing-on-GBV-in-Conflict-2012-Report.pdf (5 July 2015, date last
accessed).
Donovan, D.A. (1993) ‘Cambodia: building a legal system from scratch’, The
International Lawyer, 27(2), 445–454.
Dosch, J. (2012) ‘The role of civil society in Cambodia’s peace-building process:
have foreign donors made a difference?’, Asian Survey, 52(6), 1067–1088.
128 Emma Palmer
Dunne, T. and Wheeler, N.J. (2004) ‘‘We the peoples’: contending discourses of
security in human rights theory and practice’, International Relations, 18(1), 9–23.
Ear, S. (2010) Khmer rouge tribunal vs. karmic justice, opinion. The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/opinion/18iht-edear.html?_r=0 (5 July 2015,
date last accessed).
Epstein, C. (2014) ‘The postcolonial perspective: an introduction’, International

Theory, 6(02), 294–311.
Epstein, C., Zarakol, A., Gallagher, J., Shilliam, R. and Jabri, V. (2014) ‘Forum:
Interrogating the use of norms in international relations: postcolonial perspec-
tives’, International Theory, 6(02), 293.
Etcheson, C. (2004) ‘The politics of genocide justice in Cambodia’, in C.P.R.
Romano and A. Nollkaemper and J.K. Kleffner (eds), Internationalized Criminal
Courts and Tribunals: Sierra Leone, East Timor, Kosovo, And Cambodia, pp. 181–
232. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. (2015) ECCC Revised Budget
for 2014-2015. http://www.eccc.gov.kh/en/about-eccc/finances/eccc-revised-budget-
2014-2015 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Fawthrop, T. and Jarvis, H. (2005) Getting Away with Genocide?: Cambodia’s
Long Struggle Against the Khmer Rouge. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Fehl, C. (2004) ‘Explaining the International Criminal Court: a ‘practice test’ for
rationalist and constructivist approaches’, European Journal of International
Relations, 10(3), 357–394.
Finnemore, M. and Sikkink, K. (2001) ‘Taking stock: the constructivist research
program in international relations and comparative politics’, Annual Review of
Political Science, 4, 391–416.
FORUM-ASIA. (2001) Cambodia - 1st ASEAN Country to Ratify International
Criminal Court Treaty. http://www.iccnow.org/documents/PRForumAsiaRatifi
cationCambodia_en.pdf (24 January 2015, date last accessed).
Gegout, C. (2013) ‘The International Criminal Court: limits, potential and conditions
for the promotion of justice and peace’, Third World Quarterly, 34(5), 800–818.
Global Diligence. (2014) Communication under Article 15 of the Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court the Commission of Crimes against
Humanity in Cambodia July 2002 to Present: Global Diligence.
Goodman, R. and Jinks, D. (2004) ‘How to influence states: socialization and
international human rights law’, Duke Law Journal, 54(3), 621–703.
Gottesman, E. (2003) Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge: Inside the Politics of
Nation Building. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gray, T. (2013) Justice and the Khmer rouge: concepts of a just response to the
crimes of the Democratic Kampuchean regime in Buddhism and the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia at the time of the Khmer
Rouge tribunal. SSRN Working Paper Series. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.
2279307 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Group of Experts for Cambodia. (1999) Report of the group of experts for
Cambodia established pursuant to general assembly resolution 52/135. University
of Minnesota Human Rights Library: United Nations General Assembly.
Gutman, T. (2013) Revisiting the world’s first genocide trial: the people’s revolution-
ary tribunal, Cambodia 1979. Paper presented at the Trials for International
Crimes Trials in Asia, Singapore. Copy of paper on file with author.

Hafner-Burton, E.M. (2013) Making Human Rights a Reality. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Hammarberg, T. (2001) How the Khmer Rouge tribunal was agreed: discussions
between the Cambodian government and the UN: Part I: March 1997–March
1999. http://www.d.dccam.org/Tribunal/Analysis/How_Khmer_Rouge_Tribunal.
htm (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Haynes, J. (2014) Religion in Global Politics. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.
Hinton, A.L. (2010) ‘Introduction: toward an anthropology of transitional
justice’, in A.L. Hinton (ed.), Transitional Justice: Global Mechanisms and
Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence, pp. 1–22. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press.
Hughes, R. (2008) ‘Dutiful tourism: encountering the Cambodian genocide’, Asia
Pacific Viewpoint, 49(3), 318–330.
Human Rights Watch. (2003) Serious Flaws: Why the U.N. General Assembly
Should Require Changes to the Draft Khmer Rouge Tribunal Agreement.
New York: Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch. (2013) Cambodia: government obstructs Khmer Rouge
court. http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/09/05/cambodia-government-obstructs-khmer-
rouge-court (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Human Rights Watch. (2014) Cambodia: Khmer Rouge convictions ‘too little,
too late’: political interference, delays, corruption make tribunal a failure. http://
www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/08/cambodia-khmer-rouge-convictions-too-little-
too-late (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Human Rights Watch. (2015) 30 Years of Hun Sen: violence, repression, and cor-
ruption in Cambodia’. http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/cambodia
0115_ForUpload.pdf (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Hun Sen. (1999) ‘Aide memoire: an analysis on seeking a formula for bringing top
KR leaders to trial’, Cambodia New Vision Monthly Bulletin, 14.
Hun Sen. (2001) Address of Samdech Prime Minister at AAPP Plenary Session.
http://www.mfaic.gov.kh/?page=detail&ctype=article&id=418&lg=en (5 July
2015, date last accessed).
Hun Sen. (2002) “Challenges and Promises of ASEAN Integration: A
Cambodian Perspective.” http://cnv.org.kh/address-on-challenges-and-
promises-of-asean-integration-a-cambodian-perspective/ (5 July 2015, date last
accessed).
130 Emma Palmer
Hynek, N. and Chandler, D. (2010) ‘Introduction’, in D. Chandler and N. Hynek

(eds), Critical Perspectives on Human Security: Rethinking Emancipation and
Power, pp. 1–10. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Im, S. (2014) For some, too little too late from tribunal. Voice of America Khmer.
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/for-some-too-little-too-late-from-tribunal/
1966644.html (5 July 2015, date last accessed).

International Center for Transitional Justice. (2014) After Guilty Verdicts in
Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Broader Struggle for Accountability Continues in
Cambodia: International Center for Transitional Justice.
International Crisis Group. (2000) Cambodia: the elusive peace dividend Asia
Report No 8: International Crisis Group.
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). (2006) Implementation of
the Rome Statute in Cambodian law (Vol. 443): FIDH.
Jeffery, R. and Kim, H.J. (eds). (2014) Transitional Justice in the Asia-Pacific.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jeldres, J.A. (2002) ‘Trying the Khmer Rouge – UN Walkout Reflects Frustration’.
Bangkok Post. Available via Factiva (26 February).
Jetschke, A. (2010) Human Rights and State Security: Indonesia and the Philippines.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Katsumata, H. (2004) ‘Why is ASEAN diplomacy changing? From “non-
interference” to “open and frank discussions”, Asian Survey, XLIV(2), 237–254.
Katzenstein, P.J. (ed.). (1996) The Culture of National Security: Norms and
Identity in World Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.
Keck, M.E. and Sikkink, K. (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks
in International Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kent, A. (2006) ‘Reconfiguring security: Buddhism and moral legitimacy in
Cambodia’, Security Dialogue, 37(3), 343–361.
Kiernan, B. (1993) ‘The inclusion of the Khmer Rouge in the Cambodian peace
process: causes and consequences’, in Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia:
the Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community,
pp. 191–272. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.
Kiernan, B. (1999) Cambodia’s twisted path to justice. Points of view. http://www.
historyplace.com/pointsofview/kiernan.htm (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Kiernan, B. (2008) The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide under the
Khmer Rouge, 1975-79 (3 ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kimseng, M. (2014) US Group Plans to file against Hun Sen at International
Court. Voice of America. http://www.voacambodia.com/content/us-group-
plans-to-file-against-hun-sen-at-international-court/1843494.html (5 July 2015,
date last accessed).
Marks, S.P. (1999) ‘Elusive justice for the victims of the Khmer Rouge’, Journal of
International Affairs, 52(2), 691–719.
McCargo, D. (2011) ‘Politics by other means? The virtual trials of the Khmer
Rouge tribunal’, International Affairs, 87(3), 613–627.
McGreal, D. (2013) ‘A rationalist view of rome statute ratification in the pacific
region’, Journal of International Criminal Justice, 11(5), 1091–1109.
McSweeney, B. (1999) Security, Identity and Interests: A Sociology of International

Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Megret, F. (2014) ‘International criminal justice: a critical research agenda’, in
C. Schwöbel (ed.), Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law, pp.
17–53. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.
Megret, F. (2015) ‘What Sort of Global Justice is ‘International Criminal
Justice”?, Journal of International Criminal Justice, 13(1), 77–96.
Meisenberg, S.M. (2014) ‘Complying with Complementarity? The Cambodian
Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court’,
Asian Journal of International Law, 5(1), 123–142.
Merry, S.E. (2006) Human Rights & Gender Violence: Translating International Law
Into Local Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Nakamura, A. (ed.), (1999) International Military Tribunal for the Far East:
Dissentient Judgment of Justice Pal. Tokyo: Kokusho-Kankokai, Inc.
Newman, E. (2001) ‘Human security and constructivism’, Interational Studies
Perspectives, 2(3), 239–251.
Oberdorster, U. (2008) ‘Why ratify – lessons from treaty ratification’, Vanderbilt
Law Review, 61(2), 681–712.
Oberleitner, G. (2005) ‘Human security: a challenge to international law?’, Global
Governance, 11(2), 185–203.
Open Society Justice Initiative. (2012) Recent developments at the Extraordinary
Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia: Open Society Justice Initiative. http://
www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/recent-developments-extraordinary-
chambers-courts-cambodia-0 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Open Society Justice Initiative. (2013) Corruption allegations at Khmer Rouge
Court must be investigated thoroughly. http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/
press-releases/corruption-allegations-khmer-rouge-court-must-be-investigated-
thoroughly (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Payne, L.A. and Sikkink, K. (2014) ‘Transitional justice in the Asia-Pacific: compara-
tive and theoretical perspectives’, in R. Jeffery and H.J. Kim (eds), Transitional
Justice in the Asia-Pacific, pp. 33–60. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Peou, S. (1995) Cambodia after the Cold War: The Search for Security Continues.
Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Working Paper No. 96.
Peou, S. (1998) ‘Hun Sen’s Preemptive Coup’, Southeast Asian Affairs, 86.
Peou, S. (2009a) ‘Introduction’, in S. Peou (ed.), Human Security in East Asia:
Challenges for Collaborative Action, pp. 1–9. London: Routledge.
132 Emma Palmer
Peou, S. (2009b) ‘The limits of collaborative action on criminal justice in East Asia’,
in S. Peou (ed.), Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for Collaborative
Action, pp. 108–124. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.
Piccigallo, P.R. (1979) The Japanese on Trial: Allied War Crimes Operations in the
East, 1945–1951. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Prosecutor v NUON Chea and KHIEU Samphan, Case no. 002/19-09-2007-
ECCC/TC, Trial Chamber, Case 002/01 Judgement, 7 August 2014. (2014).
Raab, M. and Poluda, J. (2010) Justice for the survivors and for future generations
ADHOC’s ECCC/ICC Justice Project December 2006 – March 2010: ADHOC.
http://www.adhoc-cambodia.org/?p=609 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Reyes, D. (2014) ‘Interviews on the idea of justice and accountability in Cambodia’,
Article 2, 12(4), 38–44.
Ring, J. (2014) An agent-based model of international norm diffusion. http://myweb.
uiowa.edu/fboehmke/shambaugh2014/papers/Ring_Diffusion_of_Norms_
ABM_Approach.pdf (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Risse, T., Ropp, S.C. and Sikkink, K. (eds), (1999) The Power of Human Rights:
International Norms and Domestic Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Ritthy, O. (2014) Cambodia: old politicians in a new society. http://www.
humanrights.asia/opinions/columns/AHRC-ETC-015-2014 (5 July 2015, date
last accessed).
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted 17 July 1998, entered
into force 1 July 2002. (2002).
Ruggie, J.G. (1998) ‘What makes the world hang together? Neo-utilitarianism and
the social constructivist challenge’, International Organization, 52(4), 855–885.
Ryan, H. (2014) New year, same problems at ECCC. http://www.ijmonitor.org/
2015/01/new-year-same-problems-at-eccc/?utm_source=International+Justice+
Monitor&utm_campaign=ffd58c2e08-khmer-rouge&utm_medium=email&
utm_term=0_f42ffeffb9-ffd58c2e08-49422597 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Scheffer, D. (2012) ‘The toughest cockfight’, in All the Missing Souls: A Personal
History of the War Crimes Tribunals, pp. 341–408. Princeton and Oxford:
Princeton University Press.
Schiff, B. (2008) Building the International Criminal Court. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Secretary General. (2003) Report of the Secretary-General on the Khmer Rouge
trials (Un Doc. A/57/769). http://www.unakrt-online.org/documents/report-
secretary-general-khmer-rouge-trials-0 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Seiff, A. (2013) ‘Seeking justice in the killing fields’, ABA Journal, 99(3), 50–57.
Sellars, K. (2011) ‘William Patrick and “Crimes Against Peace” at the Tokyo
Tribunal, 1946–1948’, Edinburgh Law Review, 15(2), 166–196.
Shaw, R. and Waldorf, L. (2010) Localizing Transitional Justice: Interventions and

Priorities after Mass Violence. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Sikkink, K. (2011) The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are
Changing World Politics. New York: W W Norton & Company.
Sikkink, K. (2013) The Role of Agency in Constructivism. Paper Presented at the

The Future of Constructivist Research in International Relations. Oxford:
University of Oxford.
Sikkink, K. and Kim, H.J. (2013) ‘The justice cascade: the origins and effective-
ness of prosecutions of human rights violations’, Annual Review of Law and
Social Science, 9(1), 269–285.
Simmons, B.A. and Danner, A. (2010) ‘Credible commitments and the inter-
national criminal court’, International Organization, 64(2), 225–256.
Simon, S.W. (1995) ‘Realism and neoliberalism: international relations theory and
Southeast Asian security’, The Pacific Review, 8(1), 5–24.
Sisovann, P. (2001) Hun Sen Says UN Not Needed for KR Trial. The Cambodia
Daily. https://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/hun-sen-says-un-not-needed-
for-kr-trial-23944/ (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Sok An. (2003) Presentation by Deputy Prime Minister Sok An to the National
Assembly on Ratification of the Agreement between Cambodia and the United
Nations and Amendments to the 2001 Law concerning the establishment of
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the prosecution of
crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea. http://www.d.
dccam.org/Tribunal/Analysis/Sok_An_Speech.htm (5 July 2015, date last
accessed).
Sokchea, M. (2014, 7 January) ICC complaint to lay shootings at PM’s feet. The
Phnom Penh Post. http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/icc-complaint-lay-
shootings-pm%E2%80%99s-feet (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Sornarajah, M. (2001) ‘The Asian perspective to international law in the age of glo-
balization’, Singapore Journal of International & Comparative Law, 5, 284–313.
Sperfeldt, C. (2012a) ‘Cambodian civil society and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal’,
International Journal of Transitional Justice, 6(1), 149–160.
Sperfeldt, C. (2012b) ‘Collective reparations at the extraordinary chambers in the
courts of Cambodia’, International Criminal Law Review, 12(3), 457–490.
Springer, S. (2009) ‘The neoliberalization of security and violence in Cambodia’s
transition’, in S. Peou (ed.), Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for
Collaborative Action, pp. 125–141. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.
Springer, S. (2010) Cambodia’s Neoliberal Order: Violence, Authoritarianism, and
the Contestation of Public Space. London: Routledge.
Springer, S. (2011) ‘Articulated neoliberalism: the specificity of patronage, kleptoc-
racy, and violence in Cambodia’s neoliberalization’, Environment and Planning
A, 43(11), 2554–2570.
134 Emma Palmer
Springer, S. (2015) Violent Neoliberalism: Development, Discourse, and Dispossession

in Cambodia. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Statement by UN Legal Counsel Hans Corell: Negotiations between the UN and
Cambodia regarding the establishment of the court to try Khmer Rouge
leaders. (2002, 8 February). http://www.un.org/news/dh/infocus/cambodia/
corell-brief.htm (5 July 2015, date last accessed).

Steer, C. (2015) ‘Legal transplants or legal patchworking? The creation of inter-
national criminal law as a pluralistic body of law’, in E. van Sliedregt and S.
Vasiliev (eds), Pluralism in International Criminal Law, pp. 39–67. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Stegmiller, I. (2014) ‘Legal developments in civil party participation at the extra-
ordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia’, Leiden Journal of International
Law, 27(2), 465–477.
Strangio, S. (2010) ‘PM opposes ICC’s Bashir indictment’, The Phnom Penh Post.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/pm-opposes-icc’s-bashir-indictment
(5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Struett, M.J. (2008) The Politics of Constructing the International Criminal Court:
NGOs, Discourse, and Agency. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tanaka, Y., McCormack, T.L.H. and Simpson, G. (eds), (2011) Beyond Victor’s
Justice? The Tokyo War Crimes Trial Revisited. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff
Publishers.
Toon, V. (2004) ‘International criminal court: reservations of non-state parties in
Southeast Asia’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 26(2), 218–232.
Transcultural Psychosocial Organization. (2015) Promoting healing and reconcili-
ation in Cambodia through psychosocial interventions. http://tpocambodia.
org/index.php?id=207 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Tyner, J.A. (2008) The Killing of Cambodia: Geopolitics, Genocide, and the
Unmaking of Space. Burlington: Ashgate.
Un, K. (2013) ‘The Khmer rouge tribunal: a politically compromised search for
justice’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 72(04), 783–792.
United Nations General Assembly. (1997) Identical letters dated 23 June 1997
from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the General
Assembly and to the President of the Security Council. (A/51/930, S/1997/488).
http://www.eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/June_21_1997_letters_from_PMs-2.pdf
(5 July 2015, date last accessed).
United Nations General Assembly. (1998) Situation of human rights in Cambodia,
UN Doc. A/RES/52/135. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=
A/RES/52/135 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
United Nations General Assembly. (2003) Resolution adopted by the General
Assembly on the report of the Third Committee (A/57/556/Add.2 and
Corr.1-3) 57/228 Khmer Rouge trials, UN Doc. A/RES/57/228.
Urs, T. (2007) ‘Imagining locally-motivated accountability for mass atrocities:

voices from Cambodia’, International Journal of Human Rights, 7, 61–99.
Vannarin, N. and Gillison, D. (2009) Hun Sen Again warns ECCC of Civil War.
The Cambodia Daily. http://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/hun-sen-again-
warns-eccc-of-civil-war-1451/ (5 July 2015, date last accessed).

Vickery, M. (1984) Cambodia 1975–1982. North Sydney: George Allen and
Unwin.
Weber, M. (2013) ‘Between “Isses” and “Oughts”: IR constructivism, critical theory,
and the challenge of political philosophy’, European Journal of International
Relations, 1–28. doi:10.1177/1354066112466573.
White, C. (2014) Making reparation for Khmer Rouge crimes at the
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. RegNet Research Paper
No. 2014/47.
White, S. (2014) ICC case may ‘have a chance’. The Phnom Penh Post. http://
www.phnompenhpost.com/national/icc-case-may-%E2%80%98have-chance%
E2%80%99 (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Yun, S. and Lipes, J. (2013, 3 July) ‘Cambodia: Hun Sen accused of ‘crimes
against humanity’, Radio Free Asia. http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/
complaint-07032013183524.html (5 July 2015, date last accessed).
Zimmermann, L. (2014) ‘Same same or different? Norm diffusion between resist-
ance, compliance, and localization in post-conflict states’, International Studies
Perspectives, doi:10.1111/insp.12080.
Zucker, E.M. (2013) Forest of Struggle: Moralities of Remembrance in Upland
Cambodia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Palmer - 2016 - Localizing International Criminal Accountability

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Palmer - 2016 - Localizing International Criminal Accountability

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

International Relations of the Asia-Paciﬁc Volume 16 (2016) 97–135

doi:10.1093/irap/lcv013 Advance Access published on 28 July 2015

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

School of Law, University of New South Wales, Kensington,

Accepted 23 June 2015

International Relations of the Asia-Paciﬁc Vol. 16 No. 1

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

3 Homogeneous localities rarely, if ever, exist in culturally constructed communities of inter-

that, in practice, this norm of international criminal accountability is con-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

international actors held different expectations. Sections 6 and 7 explore how

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

2013, 373). Initially, ‘mainstream’ constructivist perceptions (Weber, 2013)

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

as to reveal their subjectivity. For instance, Zimmerman (2014) explains how

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

3 International crimes trials in Southeast Asia

crimes against peace following colonial domination. He considered the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

4 International criminal accountability in Cambodia:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

the nation’ and promoting ‘development based on the … implementation

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

ﬁnancial incentives were to accept a tribunal established by the UN Security

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

7 With thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation.

Rouge leaders, given the widespread involvement of the population in the

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

5 International criminal accountability: individual

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

6 Resistance and contestation in Cambodia

10 With thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this observation.

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

7 Local civil society mediation

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

proceedings, especially given the risks of political interference (Human

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

8 Adaptation and ampliﬁcation: the ECCC

to prosecute the senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea for crimes com-

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Rouge crimes, Cambodia’s leaders linked the prosecution of international

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

non-state actors have taken on a more important role in reframing justice

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Acharya, A. and Stubbs, R. (2006) ‘Theorizing Southeast Asian Relations: an

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Capie, D. (2008) ‘Localization as resistance: the contested diffusion of small arms

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023

Hynek, N. and Chandler, D. (2010) ‘Introduction’, in D. Chandler and N. Hynek

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/irap/article/16/1/97/2357519 by Jacob Heeren user on 30 May 2023