Collective Reparations at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Abstract

One of the most distinct features of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is that it combines an extensive victim participation scheme with a reparations mandate, although civil parties are limited to seeking 'collective and moral reparations'. This article looks at recent developments in the ECCC's collective reparations mandate and the result of the Court's first trial in which no tangible reparations were awarded to civil parties. It will then examine recent rule amendments under which the Victims Support Section was given responsibility for designing and implementing reparations projects for civil parties and other non-judicial measures addressing the broader interests of victims. Based on these developments, the article discusses the main challenges for implementing collective reparations in Cambodia and beyond. The article concludes with some preliminary observations and lessons following the completion of the ECCC's first trial.

The Subjective Climate Migrant: Climate Perceptions, Their Determinants, and Relationship to Migration in Cambodia

“…Brick workers and their households are characterized by multidimensional marginality rooted in their poverty, lack of assets, and the social stigma attached to their work. Beggars suffer social exclusion and poverty (Beazley and Miller 2015;Springer 2017; Parsons and Lawreniuk 2018; Parsons 2019), and Vietnamese communities are characterized by physical and social marginality, as well as political exclusion (Berman 1996;Amer 2013;Sperfeldt 2017;Parsons and Lawreniuk 2018;Canzutti 2019). From the perspective that marginality is coconstituted by natural environmental, economic, and social factors (Von Braun and Gatzweiler 2014; Chu and Michael 2019), the three groups were also selected on the basis of their geographical concentration in (and historical association with) parts of Cambodia characterized by ecological and environmental precarity.…”

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

“…Some publications are more attuned to the challenges on the ground that practitioners are facing (e.g. Sperfeldt, 2012), and some highlight positive contributions of the ECCC for victims (e.g. Stover et al, 2011).…”

“…Also known as the Khmer Rouge (KR) Tribunal, the ECCC is a hybrid tribunal that was established in 2004 to try the senior leaders and those most responsible for crimes committed under the KR regime between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979. While the transitional justice process in Cambodia cannot simply be reduced to the ECCC, as civil society played a significant role in facilitating, widening and enriching the ECCC-focused transitional justice process (Sperfeldt, 2012), this article examines non-participation in the context of the ECCC legal proceedings specifically. This case study is particularly relevant for discussions on non-participation since the ECCC offers significant possibilities for participation: not only is it located in Cambodia, its civil party participation scheme has also been considered (at least initially) to be the ‘most progressive mode of victim participation’ in international criminal justice (Thomas and Chy, 2009: 231).…”

Civil Society and Transitional Justice in Asia and the Pacific

“…While activities that had dominated a decade of NGO involvement with the Khmer Rouge trials were gradually coming to an end, NGO interest in the ECCC's evolving collective reparations scheme was on the rise. Alongside the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ECCC is one of the few internationalised criminal courts with a reparations mandate (Sperfeldt 2012b). The ECCC's Internal Rule 23 limits the scope of reparations in that civil parties are only allowed to seek 'collective and moral reparations', thus excluding individual reparations.…”