Cambodia and the progressivist ‘imaginary’: The limitations of international(ised) criminal tribunals as mechanisms for implementing human rights

This chapter explores the limitations of international criminal justice in implementing positive human rights changes in countries devastated by atrocity. Focusing on ‘hybrid’ criminal tribunals that blend domestic and international characteristics, it interrogates the coherence of the human rights ‘imaginary’ – an unachievable vision of a future driven by ideas of inevitable progress from authoritarianism to democracy and other Western liberal assumptions. The chapter focuses on one such hybrid justice mechanism, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), an internationalised tribunal created to bring to justice those responsible for the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era between 1975 and -1979. Reflecting on how the broader domestic human rights situation in Cambodia was significantly worse in 2022 than before the ECCC commenced its work in 2006, the chapter argues that an overly narrow focus on an ‘anti-impunity’ agenda does a disservice to the broader contexts within which human rights sit. Drawing on the scholarship of Hinton and Fletcher, who respectively call for a consideration of individual lived experiences of the affected population and for a culture of ‘solidarity of practice’ with local processes, this chapter argues for a more inclusive understanding of human rights beyond the understandable but limited reflex to prosecute.