ABSTRACT
Much has changed in Cambodia since the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, a series of peacebuilding initiatives by the United Nations (UN) and foreign donors that aimed to uproot violence and impunity in the country and implant human rights and the rule of law. As part of this transitional process, Cambodia adopted a liberal democratic Constitution in 1993 and the country became party to an impressive array of international human rights treaties. Implementation is another story. Cambodia’s government, led by the long-ruling Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodia People’s Party (CPP), has resisted reforms that would put liberal legal frameworks and human rights ideologies into practice. Contemporary Cambodia remains haunted by Pol Pot’s 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime, which eradicated Cambodia’s traditional dispute resolution processes and colonial civil law system. The subsequent decade of Vietnam-sponsored rule in the 1980s entrenched centralized socialist governance and legal institutions that have stubbornly challenged reform efforts of the 1990s and onwards. Cambodian and foreign observers alike often mutter the French adage: “ plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ” (see Ear 2013, 38; Chandler 2010). This chapter considers two decades of international human rights promotion and liberal legal development efforts in Cambodia with emphasis on courts, lawyers, and human rights defenders.
