The Justice Facade: Trials of Transition in Cambodia

by Alexander Hinton

Overview

Is there a point to international justice?

Many contend that tribunals deliver not only justice but truth, reconciliation, peace, democratization, and the rule of law. These are the transitional justice ideals frequently invoked in relation to the international hybrid tribunal in Cambodia that is trying senior leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime for genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the mid-to-late 1970s.

In this ground-breaking book, Alexander Hinton argues these claims are a facade masking what is most critical: the ways in which transitional justice is translated, experienced, and understood in everyday life. Rather than reading the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in the language of global justice and human rights, survivors understand the proceedings in their own terms, including Buddhist beliefs and on-going relationships with the spirits of the dead.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198820956
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/22/2018
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Alexander Hinton, Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University

Alexander Hinton is Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Professor of Anthropology, and UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention at Rutgers University. The American Anthropological Association selected Hinton as the recipient of the Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology. Hinton was listed as one of 'Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide' and is a past President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Hinton has received fellowships from a range of institutions and was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Most recently Hinton was a convener of the international "Rethinking Peace Studies" initiative and served as an expert witness at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.

Table of Contents

I - VorticesPreamble: Discourse, Time, and Space1. Progression (Cambodia's Three Transitions)2. Time (The Khmer Institute of Democracy)3. Space (Centre for Social Development and the Public Sphere)II - TurbulencePreamble: Re/enactment4. Aesthetics (Theary Seng, Vann Nath, and Victim Participation)5. Performance (Reach Sambath, Public Affairs, and "Justice Trouble")6. Discipline (Uncle Meng and the Trials of the Foreign)III - EddiesPreamble: Breaking the Silence7. Subjectivity (DC-Cam and the ECCC Outreach Tour)8. Normativity (Civil Party Testimony)9. Disposition (Youk Chhang, Documenter and Survivor)Conclusion: Justice in Translation

Editorial Reviews

"Hinton succeeds brilliantly in both denaturalizing the assumptions embedded in the transitional justice imaginary and disclosing how variously positioned actors appropriate and reframe transitional justice proceedings." — Alexandra Kent, Anthropos

"an important contribution to the transitional justice literature that will also be interesting to broader audiences interested in international relations, international law, peacebuilding or development." — Timothy Williams, Genocide Studies and Prevention

"The Justice Facade is an engaging and original contribution to trauma studies. ... Hinton's heterogeneous work parallels the hybridity of global justice and the result is a persuasive and exciting new addition to the field." — Katherine Burn, Studies in Testimony

"The Justice Facade compels practitioners and academics alike to consider an ethnographically grounded phenomenological approach. ... Hinton's analysis of data from material culture, participant-observation, observation, and interviews moves transitional justice debates beyond essentialism to demonstrate the process for translating and fostering transitional justice ideologies and practices at the ground level. ... For those who desire to understand how international justice reproduces ideologies at the ground level and intertwines itself into local beliefs, The Justice Facade is the book to read." — Jaymelee J. Kim, American Ethnologist

"In ... The Justice Facade: Trials of Transition in Cambodia, Hinton explains the origin of the Extraordinary Chambers and analyzes the significance of their operations. Hinton spent considerable time in Cambodia, attending Duch's trial and subsequent proceedings against other Khmer Rouge figures. Hinton also interviewed participants and visited nongovernmental organizations that sought to inform the Cambodian public about the Extraordinary Chambers. Hinton's detailed account of the work of these civil society organizations is perhaps the greatest contribution that The Justice Facade adds to the existing literature on the Extraordinary Chambers." — John Quigley, Human Rights Quarterly

"[Hinton's] method and argument contributes to transitional justice - and particularly international criminal justice - scholarship and has implications for human rights, peacebuilding, and development studies in Cambodia. The Justice Facade is also compelling reading, with Hinton's attention toward lived experience offering a richly emotive and personalised account of the dynamic impact of the Democratic Kampuchea period." — Dr Emma Palmer, New Mandala

"The concept of 'the justice facade', among others offered in the book, is very useful in describing the idealised imaginaries which alienate lived experiences on the ground ... Hinton asks readers to unpack their own transitional justice imaginaries and their facade-like renderings to consider more deeply the meanings and purposes of 'justice', 'peacebuilding' and transitional justice measures. This book is therefore a very welcome contribution to critical transitional justice studies." — Ebru Demir, LSE Review of Books blog

"The Justice Façade is a ground-breaking book. Hinton provides a remarkable, closely observed study of transitional justice. Bringing his longstanding experience in post-genocide Cambodia to bear, he skilfully overturns much conventional wisdom about what it takes to come to terms with historic injustice. With this highly imaginative book, Hinton advances the study and practice of transitional justice in innumerable ways. The Justice Façade is essential reading for anyone intent on exporting the rule of law."
- Jens Meierhenrich, author of The Remnants of the Rechtsstaat: A Ethnography of Nazi Law

"Behind the façade of the utopia of contemporary transitional justice, Alexander Laban Hinton finds a different set of personal realities. His extraordinary ethnography and phenomenology of the processes unleashed by Cambodia's attempt to reckon with the genocidal past is the richest treatment of what transitional justice means as lived experience, beyond the familiar distractions of the promotional advertising and the liberal democratic teleology of the field."
- Samuel Moyn, author of Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World

"there is much to ponder in this book ... Any students of transitional justice who see the Cambodian experience as a chapter in a larger, evolving volume will find much to advance their thinking." — James Jennings, The Mekong Review

From the Publisher