Elusive retributive justice in post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia: Challenges of using ECCC Victim Information Forms as a victim participatory rights mechanism

Abstract

This paper focuses on the procedural challenges of using the Victim Information Forms (VIFs) to analyze survivors' experiences with the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), commonly known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The paper takes a systematic public/medical sociology approach to examining the VIF as a participatory rights mechanism for victims wishing to pursue justice for themselves and their loved ones who experienced the Khmer Rouge atrocities, torture, forced relocation, starvation, forced labor, rape, robbery, and other physical and psychological torment, firsthand. It provides the first comparative, critical analysis of both the original VIF and the revised form issued midway through the submission period; both forms appear as appendices to the paper. Conclusions are drawn and suggestions made by the researcher based on the firsthand collection and submission of the largest group of VIFs from any single source around the world (outside of Cambodia itself), as well as on support work with victims/survivors during the ECCC proceedings in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2013.