Constructing victimhood at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Abstract

This paper considers the actors and contexts which frame victimhood within transitional justice mechanisms, using the Khmer Rouge Tribunal as a case study. Drawing on critical victimology's concern with the cultural, political and legal construction of victimhood, this paper explores how heterogeneous legal and political elites can create layers of exclusion, shaping which victims are seen, and which are unseen, within official responses to atrocity. While the politics of victimhood in domestic and transitional contexts has been acknowledged within the literature, this paper's actor-oriented approach contributes a thicker understanding of how 'worthy' victims are selected from all those who have suffered from mass atrocity. In particular, it considers how political compromises, jurisdictional limits, prosecutorial choices, and the creation of a civil party participation system have shaped victim visibility within the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Memory construction of former Khmer Rouge cadres: resistance to dominant discourses of genocide in Cambodia

“…The former is associated with notions of destruction and evil, while the latter is generally considered innocent, passive, and morally elevated vis-àvis the perpetrators (Zucker 2017, p. 38). The notion of innocent victims has been problematized within the studies of complex victimhood, where the definition of victims is rather fluid and complex (Bernath 2016, Killean 2018, William 2019. In many post-conflict contexts, however, the construction of the category of victims and perpetrators as oppositional binaries is fundamentally contested as the lines between these categories become blurred.…”

“…However, such blurred categories of victim/perpetrator tend to be constructed differently during the transitional justice's legal prosecution of KR senior leaders. The term 'victim' has been problematized within studies of victimology, with some arguing that victims should not be simply portrayed as persons of innocence and passivity (Killean 2018). Julie Bernath (2016, p. 47) argues that 'relying on a simple, idealized image of the victim not only obscures critical aspects of political violence and mass atrocity but also contributes to problematic differentiations between good/bad and us/them.'…”

Political Violence as a Time That is Past? Engaging With Non-Participation in Transitional Justice in Cambodia

“…Today, a large body of literature exists on the ECCC, which either focuses on specific issues – for instance victim participation (e.g. Killean, 2018) or a specific trial (e.g. Chy, 2014) – or examines the relevance and achievements of the ECCC whilst the process is still unfolding (see e.g.…”

From ecocide to eco-sensitivity: ‘greening’ reparations at the International Criminal Court

“…2 Even within the context of the core crimes, the prioritisation of certain forms of violence over others obscures the multifaceted harms caused by those crimes. 3 In this paper, I consider attempts to address one such obfuscation, namely, the ways in which the anthropocentric nature of the core crimes 4 renders invisible the destructive harm that mass violence can have on the natural environment and the people who rely on that environment. 5 Undoubtedly, much of the destruction of our natural world is carried out during times of peace, often in the context of activities deemed completely legal.…”