Stanford Global Studies

Khmer Rouge Tribunal Process

Documented by the Handa Center

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

sgs.stanford.edusgs.information@stanford.edu

Vol. 2, Issue 5

SGS PROGRAMS & CENTERS:

CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR SOUTH ASIA

THE EUROPE CENTER

FORD DORSEY PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY STUDIES

FRANCE-STANFORD CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

GLOBAL STUDIES INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

HAMID AND CHRISTINA MOGHADAM PROGRAM IN IRANIAN STUDIES

INNER ASIA @ STANFORD

MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES FORUM

PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SOHAIB AND SARA ABBASI PROGRAM IN ISLAMIC STUDIES

THE STANFORD HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION INITIATIVE

TAUBE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES

WSD HANDA CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia by violent overthrow of the Lon Nol government. The secretive leaders of this radical Maoist regime ruled Cambodia for a period of 3 years, 8 months and 20 days, during which time at least 1.7 million people are believed to have died from starvation, torture, execution and forced labor. Now, more than three decades after the Khmer Rouge fell from power, the alleged perpetrators of the genocide are being put on trial in Phnom Penh before a hybrid international criminal tribunal known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

As part of its “Asian International Justice Initiative,” the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice has been collaborating with the East-West Center to maintain a regional trial monitoring presence at the ECCC, to report on the proceedings, publish analyses of the institution’s progress, and produce film and television segments to make the proceedings more accessible to the Cambodian public. As part of this program, the Handa Center has been sending student interns to Cambodia to serve as members of the international monitoring team and conduct research for monitoring publications.

“The trial monitoring team is in court every day the court is in session,” said Handa Center Director David Cohen. “This is a joint United Nations and Cambodian tribunal that deals directly with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge genocide.”

The monitoring team writes weekly reports that are posted on the web (http://krtmonitor.org) in both English and Khmer. The goal is to make this incredibly complex international trial understandable for a lay audience including students, international civil society, ordinary Cambodians, and members of the Cambodian diaspora. In addition to the written reports, the team also uses television as a medium for reaching a wider audience, including those with limited literacy. Monitors work with producers from local partner Khmer Mekong Films to synthesize and present highlights selected from the nearly 20–25 hours of trial footage each week to the Cambodian public on a television talk show. The trial monitors play a pivotal role in shaping the weekly program. Their job is to take the hours upon hours of court footage and highlight 12–15 minutes worth of clips that would best represent the week’s events in the courtroom.

Stanford students Havi Mirell and Daniel Mattes at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

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“The TV producers are not legally trained, so they need some assistance identifying what is most important in the trial. Since our trial monitors are in court every day and following the proceedings very closely, they are able to provide this assistance,” said Cohen. “We identify and guide them to notable moments in the courtroom video.”

Additionally, trial monitors review all scripts for factual and legal accuracy as well as objectivity.

“When you’re translating legal concepts into more basic language, you must make sure you’re not foregoing accuracy in the process,” said associate director for the center, Penelope Van Tuyl, who is a trained lawyer. “Although simplified, you still must accurately convey the basis for a particular conviction or the meaning of a certain allegation. We want the viewing public to be able to understand the factual findings of these proceedings as well as the core principles of fair trial rights in action in the courtroom.”

The first edition of the show for Case 001 was called “Duch on Trial.” When Case 002 began, the associated television programming was called “Facing Justice.” These weekly programs air on Cambodian network television and are also available online. The network broadcasts have reportedly attracted up to 3 million viewers each week and have become a primary source of information for the Cambodian people according to Time Magazine, which called “Duch on Trial” a

“sleeper hit.”

“With one in five Cambodians watching the show every week,” wrote Time correspondent Christopher Shay, “‘Duch on Trial’ has become the main way many young Cambodians—who were not taught about the Khmer Rouge in school—learn about the historic Khmer Rouge tribunal unfolding in Phnom Penh.”

The Khmer Rouge trial monitoring project is just one of several human rights and international justice projects the Handa Center has ongoing. Since its founding in 2000 (as the War Crimes Studies Center at UC Berkeley), the Center has hosted projects in many overseas locations, including Indonesia, East Timor, Rwanda, Bangladesh, and Sierra Leone. In addition to trial monitoring, the projects have ranged from a freedom of religion study in the ten member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to human rights training for justice sector personnel (judges, prosecutors and police) and civil society entities, like NGOs.

All of this speaks to the wide-ranging engagement the Handa Center has in the human rights field, the diversity of its research, and how it sets itself apart from other human rights organizations.

“One thing that makes us different is that we are a university-based human rights organization with a mission to give highly motivated young people, like the students you find at Stanford, the opportunity to get actual field experience, which is an absolute prerequisite for a career in human rights,” Cohen said.

Having moved from Berkeley at the end of 2013, the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice is new to Stanford University and has found a home in the Stanford Global Studies Division (SGS).

“It’s such a great opportunity for the Center to come here and be part of SGS. It has the infrastructure and community in place from which we can draw students and find ways to collaborate with the other international centers,” said Van Tuyl

Students interested in war crimes tribunal monitoring, the human rights field, or international justice are invited to get in touch with either Director David Cohen or Associate Director Penelope Van Tuyl through email, and are encouraged to take one of their upcoming courses. This coming fall the Handa Center also plans to host a series of information sessions for students to advertise the various ways students can get involved through internships and research projects.

To view episodes of “Duch on Trial” visit the Khmer Rouge Trial Monitoring blog [http://krtmonitor.org/category/case-001-duch-on-trial-videos/]. For more information about the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice, contact Penelope Van Tuyl [pvantuyl@stanford.edu].]

New Summer Research Funds

for SGS Students

A generous gift from the Friends of Stanford University Foundation in Taiwan recently enabled the Stanford Global Studies Division to award “Global Perspectives” grants to help fund summer SGS graduate student research.

“The applicants’ projects demonstrate the geographical range and academic depth of our MA programs,” said Norman Naimark, Director of Stanford Global Studies. “Their research will take them to many parts of the world where they will engage issues including HIV transmission, police security, women’s soccer, Asian art, and more. We’re pleased to be able to provide this funding for M.A. students and look forward to hearing in detail about their work.”

Visit sgs.stanford.edu/2014summerresearchfunds for a list of the recipients.

Handa Center (continued from page 1)

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Historian Prasenjit Duara Calls for a New Ethic

The twenty-first century has been marked by a growing concern over environmental sustainability. Though many believe that the harmful effects of climate change are beyond repair, the renowned historian Dr. Prasenjit Duara, Raffles Professor of Humanities at the National University of Singapore, drew upon social theory, historiography, and the history of Asia in the twentieth century to restore “faith and hope” in the idea of planetary sustainability.

The lecture was in many ways a preview of his forthcoming book, Transcendence in the Secular World: Asian Traditions and Sustainability in Sustainable Modernity, published through Cambridge University Press. Duara was invited by Stanford Global Studies Director Norman Naimark to discuss his work.

Duara's lecture entitled, “Sustainability and the Crisis of Transcendence: The Long View from Asia,” offers a new perspective on human agency and environmental sustainability. By focusing on the transformative potential of regional and transnational networks, Duara argues that it is possible for globally-connected NGOs to unite nations under the common interest of environmental conservationism. He believes that “some of the most informed actors are global civil society, together with local activists and communities, [that] bring knowledge, information, transparency, and accountability to the sacred goals” of environmental protection.

Duara’s talk reflects a key value underlying Global Studies. SGS Director Norman Naimark remarks, “Duara’s emphasis on the importance of thinking about regional categories outside strict area borders is crucial to our own conceptualization of how to organize Global Studies. The lecture, in particular, emphasized the ways in which regions are drawn together to deal with the crucial issues associated with climate change, which know no country borders but demand regional and world attention.”

The nation-state, Duara argues, is an outdated remnant of Western imperialism. “Whether we talk of terrorism, or biological, chemical, or economic epidemics, or environmental crisis, we have reached a stage where we have to transcend the nation or national interest just in order to have the nation.” Nations must move away from national self-interest and consider the global impact of environmental degradation. The collective management of water and the emergence of hydropower plants, Duara explains, is one challenge affecting “communities, networks, the state, and multi-national companies.” An estimate of one billion individuals throughout Asia rely upon the Himalayan watersheds and the outlying rivers for their water supply. Furthermore, “if you look at the

China and Southeast Region, over sixty million people could be affected by security disasters if dams are, in fact, not maintained to the highest standards that they need.” He lists the possible security disasters that may result, including “food shortages, destruction of livelihoods, irregular movements of people who have to leave one form of livelihood and have to try to find another form, which can lead to, of course, violence and civil war.”

To prevent such global crises from occurring, Duara argues for an ethics of transcendence and a sense of “shared sovereignty” among nation-states. Regional formations, such as NAFTA, ASEAN, Mercosur, and the European Union “have become, interestingly, very salient since this new turn in globalization.” He continues, “they permit a smaller clustering of sovereign or semi-sovereign agencies to tackle the spill-out problems from globalization, from environmental mismanagement, from scarcity of global commons.” This cooperative approach has precedence in the Chinese dynastic concept of transcendence.

Drawing from the concept of tianxia, or “all under heaven,” Duara considers transcendence as an “authoritative source of self-cultivation and ethical life for individuals.” As a source of ethics, transcendence promotes a framework of a new, modern universalism that “generates a reflexivity of the self” in relation to the world. He adds, “in Chinese cosmology, nature represents the greatest of all living organisms, and its governing principles had to be understood so that that human life has to be in harmony with it.” It is this imperative that Duara believes can serve as a model for the twenty-first century.

Based upon evidence in modern-day China, Duara argues that “a green public sphere has sprouted and mushroomed all over China” and is the key in mobilizing governments and transnational networks to achieve environmental justice. Duara identifies the environmental activism of “NGOs, quasi-

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by Jennifer Hsieh

Professor Duara aims to restore hope in the possibility of planetary sustainability during his lecture. (Photo by Mark Rapacz)

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government agencies, and public/private initiatives” as the driving force behind sustainability in the modern world. From the green activism of religious networks in China, to the local activism of communities in Cambodia’s Prey Lang forest, to the organized efforts of NGOs to halt environmental destruction in the Three Gorges Dam project in Eastern China, individuals and organizations are using the resources of a globally-connected, environmentally-conscious public sphere to influence government policies. He adds “one of the most effective roles that I’ve seen global NGOs play in China, in relation to local NGOS, is with the Three Gorges." The mobilization of local Chinese NGOS within a globally connected network prompted the divestment of foreign governments, the IMF, and private shareholders from the environmentally harmful project. These local NGOS “are very networked” with international and regional NGOS and are effective because they serve as “watchdogs” for violations over existing environmental laws and regulations.

Duara’s lecture raises the point that nations must move towards a universal solution that exists beyond the purview of the nation. A broad-reaching discussion among nations is necessary to address the difficult questions of environmental rights and protection. He praises the Kyoto Protocol, based upon the balancing act of carbon credits among developed and developing nations, as one model of international cooperation that ought to be implemented. However, each time international groups try to implement this, countries “cannot come to an agreement, despite the fact that there is massive support and increasing support from transnational civil societies.”

The main challenge that lies ahead is for nations to recognize their role in environmental sustainability and to move beyond domestic, national interests in order to achieve it. As Duara mentions, “We live in the era of the anthropocene, by which it is meant that humans are a causal factor in the environment and in the geology of the planet, more than any other. Collectively our actions as a whole will determine the sustainability of the earth more than any other force.” While at one point the intended purpose of the nation-state was to promote economic growth and development, it must now contend, alongside individuals and NGOs, with the daunting task of creating a better, healthier, more sustainable world.

Jennifer Hsieh is a graduate student in Stanford's Department of Anthropology. ]

Prasenjit Duara (continued from page 3)