Accountability

Pol Pot died in 1998 without ever being brought to justice for his crimes. A United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (the Khmer Rouge Tribunal) was established in 2006 to prosecute surviving senior Khmer Rouge leaders. The tribunal convicted several senior figures of crimes against humanity and genocide, though many lower-level perpetrators were never prosecuted. The tribunal ended its work in 2022.

Why this case matters: The Cambodian Genocide is significant for several reasons. It is the most extreme case of revolutionary anti-traditional violence in the course (compare to Mao's Cultural Revolution, Unit 10.6, which Pol Pot took to even further extremes). It demonstrates that genocide can be motivated by political and class ideology, not only by ethnic or religious hatred. It shows the limits of the Genocide Convention's definition, since the strict legal characterization of Khmer Rouge violence is complicated by the fact that most victims were ethnic Khmer like the perpetrators. And it shows the long shadow of Cold War politics: the United States supported the Khmer Rouge's claim to Cambodia's UN seat after they were overthrown, because Vietnam (which had ended the genocide) was a Cold War enemy. The international response to the Cambodian Genocide is not a story of which the great powers can be proud.