Perceptions justice in the Khmer Rouge tribunals: anthropological perspectives on the 'glocalization' of international law

Abstract

This paper presents an anthropological analysis of concepts of justice in contemporary Cambodia in the context of the Khmer Rouge Tribunals and addresses issues regarding the glocalization of international law and universal (or 'natural') ethics. Adopting a basically cultural-relativist perspective, legalist notions of 'international justice' will be critically discussed and alternative ways of localizing 'global' ethics proposed. Based on an analysis of perceptions of justice in traditional Cambodian society on the one hand, and ideas of just(ified)' violence during the Khmer Rouge period on the other hand, my paper will come to terms with the myriad concepts of justice' as they have been displayed in the course of the Khmer Rouge Trials in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a hybrid tribunal, set up to charge senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea and those 'most responsible' for crimes committed during April 1975 and January 1979. The analysis of justice' concepts in this context is not limited to legal precepts of retributive and restorative justice, but includes also the wider aims of the tribunals - reconciliation and strengthening the rule of law in contemporary Cambodia - as well as the persistence of alternative (extra-legal) ideas of justice in the court room, e.g. nations of 'psychological peace' and demands for vengeance among the Civil Parties and the Victim's Unit of the ECCC, or personal justification strategies of Kaing Guek Eav alias Duch, former director of the political prison S-21 (Tuol Sleng) and currently accused of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Convention and crimes under the Cambodian Penal Code of 1956.