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5 - Hybrid Court, Hybrid Peacebuilding in Cambodia
- from Part I - Understanding the Cases
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- By Laura McGrew
- Edited by Paige Arthur, New York University, Christalla Yakinthou, University of Birmingham
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- Book:
- Transitional Justice, International Assistance, and Civil Society
- Published online:
- 23 March 2018
- Print publication:
- 29 March 2018, pp 144-174
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Laura McGrew looks at Cambodia, with its significant Khmer Rouge and civil war legacy. Cambodia is now a post-conflict country with a considerable TJ footprint, primarily in the ongoing work of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and related CSO efforts to document, memorialize, and recover from the legacy of violence. McGrew argues that international assistance to TJ in Cambodia has been hampered by the voluntary structure of contributions to the ECCC, donor personnel’s lack of knowledge of TJ principles and processes, the separation of funding streams for the ECCC versus related CSO TJ activities, the dwarfing of funds to CSOs in comparison to the ECCC, a lack of knowledge within donor agencies of what different departments are funding and monitoring, and by donor fatigue. Nonetheless, international assistance has provided important inputs to TJ mechanisms for civil society, and the ECCC itself would never have happened without donors taking initiative. McGrew argues that although the ECCC has opened space for CSOs, the court was and remains donors’ main focal point for TJ in Cambodia—with the result that donor interest in funding civil society actors working on TJ has ebbed and flowed with the performance of the ECCC. As the ECCC became bogged down in problems of funding, political interference, and corruption allegations, support to CSOs and TJ networks correspondingly declined, and the aid-dependent CSOs found difficulties mobilizing new sources of funding (except for some new funding streams from the US). As with Guatemala, CSOs have also not maintained previous levels of cooperation between themselves. One bright spot (bucking the trend of donor fickleness) suggested by McGrew’s research is an initiative led by the German Civil Peace Service, which has funded a ten-year commitment to build the capacity and coordination of local organizations working on TJ-related issues. Worryingly, however, she concludes that In spite of the extensive international assistance to TJ (and previously to rule of law) in Cambodia, recent government crackdowns on CSOs indicate that donor and CSO goals to link TJ initiatives to ongoing impunity have not been particularly effective in the face of Cambodia’s authoritarian government.