ABSTRACT
This chapter parses examples of the 'scripts' that have been put to work within the courtroom. It reflects on how trials work as a site of memory in closer detail and to identify some of the socio-political consequences that follow from the different techniques of memory. The chapter identifies specific patterns, or 'scripts', evident in prosecutorial and victim statements within the courtroom, locating memory claims that are registered on the basis of their apparent reliability. It examines how defence teams have contested these memory claims, focusing in particular on strategies of 'acquiescence', 'denial' and 'rupture'. The chapter also examines examples of how the outcomes of the court process can be 'unscripted' and the way they can be received by stakeholders – specifically Civil Parties – in problematic ways. It explores how memory work within the courtroom generates unexpected and unforeseen outcomes and resistances that elide the outcomes anticipated from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) process.
