Transitional Justice and its (Dis)contents. Perceptions of Justice, Reconciliation and Empowerment Among Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia

Cast as the main symbolic beneficiaries of Transitional Justice processes, victims are central to the discursive practices of self-legitimation of these processes. The most far-reaching attempt of inclusion of victims in an internationalised criminal tribunal began in the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), in which for the first time in international criminal justice civil parties were allowed. And yet little is known about how various judicial and civil society Transitional Justice projects are actually perceived by the victims they are purported to be benefiting. Thus, this paper poses the question: What effect does the inclusion of civil parties at the ECCC, moral and collective reparations, as well as broader civil societal dealing with the past have on the perception of justice and reconciliation in Cambodia? To answer this question, this paper presents the results of a survey with approximately 400 victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, consisting mostly of civil parties at the ECCC (including varying degrees of engagement at the court, as well as those who were rejected), that also includes respondents who did not participate in the judicial proceedings, but did in civil society Transitional Justice programmes, as well as some victims who did not participate in any Transitional Justice activities. Furthermore, in-depth interviews were carried out with a selection of these respondents. A structured comparison of these various respondents allows us to disaggregate Transitional Justice’s effects on the post-conflict society in Cambodia through the eyes of the victims.