Among the available books on colonial Cambodia, Sally Low’s Colonial Law Making presents the most thorough account of the contestations, negotiation, and power shift among French colonizers and the colonized Cambodian elites. Low’s monograph, consisting of nine well-crafted and coherent chapters, effectively conveys ideas concerning the legal arena, which became the most contested ground among various political factions after France singed the 1863 Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Protection with the then Cambodian ruler, Prince Norodom. The book chronologically traces the development of colonial legal reforms from the French’s first attempts to reform Cambodian courts and legal processes in the late 19th century through to the early years of post-independence in the 1950s, when the colonial legal heritage became embedded in Cambodia’s judicial system and constitution.
The book’s main argument centers on a series of interventions imposed by top French colonial officials upon the existing indigenous legal system, which was deemed unfit for modernizing the kingdom. Consequently, new legal codes were introduced, the judicial system was restructured, and more French officials participated in legal proceedings and judgements of indigenous courts. However, as Low discusses, “Cambodians were neither powerless nor passive” (20). In fact, the story of colonial law making unfolds through multi-layered and complex power struggles and negotiations, which sometimes involved violence, punishments, and military forces, and at other times stemmed from misunderstandings among French colonial officials, Cambodian kings, and local influential elites. Each played a role in shaping colonial law, and their exchanges—including efforts to protect and expand their influence and alliances—challenge the simplistic dichotomy between collaboration and resistance (21).
As someone who studies Cambodian and Southeast Asian history, I find Colonial Law Making fascinating in its close examination of how laws were instrumentalized by colonial officials, among whom there were differing perspectives on reforms and the implementation of newly imposed legal codes. Each official built their own alliances, either with French counterparts or with influential indigenous elites. Contests between colonial administrators and judges shaped the structure of the indigenous justice system as much as the incorporation of legal codes and judicial frameworks borrowed from places like the metropole. Moreover, the book’s comparative approach adds valuable insights to the literature of legal and historical studies as it allows readers to reflect on the Cambodian experience within the broader regional context of Southeast Asia, which underwent similar political changes and legal reforms under Western colonial influence. While comparing similar patterns across different contexts is useful, the book also reminds us to pay closer attention to each unique experience, as the processes of lawmaking and reform often involve a myriad of contingent events and coincidences that, in turn, shape the legacy of each context (211). These insights, among many others, are thoughtfully and critically developed based on a substantial collection of archival sources, including materials from the National Archives of Cambodia in Phnom Penh and other colonial archives such as Les Archives Nationales d’outre mer (National Overseas Archives) in Aix-en-Provence, France.
Low might have benefited from a more in-depth exploration of Khmer/Cambodian sources and local actors in her discussions. The perspectives of local figures like Penn Nouth (156–163) are crucial, and she does a fantastic job in reflecting their active engagement in the conversations with their French counterparts regarding colonial law. However, other influential law-trained individuals such as Son Ngoc Thanh, along with nationalists like Pach Chhoeun and Sim Var, played a significantly greater role in fostering legal awareness and debates among the Cambodian public through their Khmer-language newspaper Nagaravatta (1936–1942). This publication gained prominence on the national stage primarily due to its frequent coverage of court cases involving disputes between ethnic Khmers and ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese inhabitants in Cambodia. To be fair, Low has made her point about how members of the local ruling elite, including Penn Nouth, felt resentment regarding the colonial justice system, which placed ethnic Vietnamese and Chinese inhabitants under French courts, rather than Cambodian jurisdiction. However, a thorough examination of those cases may shed more light on how colonial law shaped the everyday lives of people, including rural villagers and different ethnic communities living in different parts of the kingdom. Moreover, since key debates about French reforms such as colonial taxation, legal institutions, and courts were primarily conducted through Khmer sources such as the Nagaravatta newspaper, the state-run Kampuchea newspaper, and literary texts like 20th-century moral codes of conduct, Low could further enhance her insights into how colonial law was reflected among the local educated elites and how it contributed to the development of collective identity and nationalist discourses under French rule.
Colonial Law Making is undoubtedly a significant contribution to multiple fields of scholarship. The book offers many original insights, not only to the fields of colonial lawmaking and the history of Cambodia and Southeast Asia but also on comparative legal studies, governance, and nation-building.
