ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the criticism that the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) attracts. As an exercise in international justice, the ECCC is one example of the movement toward 'hybrid' or 'mixed' courts that gained traction in the early 2000s, visible also, for example, at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Lebanon Tribunal or the Special Panels for Serious Crimes in East Timor. The jurisdiction and mandate of the ECCC are important starting points for reflecting on the relationship of prosecutions to memory because they anchor, rather than pre-determine, processes of disclosure and concealment of past violence, with memories coded within and against specific criminal categories. Under initial formulations, the ECCC's internal rules prescribed Civil Parties with a range of participatory rights, broadly on a par with the defense and prosecution. The civil tradition prefigures a novel ECCC victim participation mechanism, whereby formally recognised victims become 'Civil Parties' within cases.
