ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the way this provided for the representation of certain victim subjects as relevant for law. The relation between the United Nations (UN) and the Cambodian government holds the foundation of the ECCC. What Ciorciari and Heindel call the hybrid nature of the Court is its split foundation between Cambodian national and UN international components. The UN representatives and the facilitators were reluctant to grant the Cambodian government too much authority. The representation of a victim at the ECCC is contingent on there being a person accused of having committed the crime, the act of victimisation. The contours of victims are based on jurisdictional practices of the Court. The chapter argues that the ECCC with its authority to hear events after 1975 reinforces a certain exceptionalisation of Democratic Kampuchea and the Khmer Rouge that a-historicises the events at the expense of a more complex story.
