Accounts of transitional justice in Cambodia tend to view the process as providing too little justice, too late. More than thirty years after the Khmer Rouge regime, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has been established, ostensibly to help ‘heal’ the trauma of victims of Khmer Rouge atrocities. However, little attention is paid to why the Cambodian government agreed to set up the ECCC after years of international pressure. This paper argues that such a move represents less a victory for advocates of transitional justice than it is a reflection of the interests of the Cambodian government. By agreeing to a limited regime of transitional justice, the government has diverted diplomatic and donor attention away from allegations of corruption and human rights abuses in the present, towards its role as ‘saviour of the nation’ in the past.
