Ridiscutere il dramma cambogiano, dagli studi di Enrica Collotti Pischel agli sviluppi recenti

In 1988, Enrica Collotti Pischel organised a conference at the University of Milan dedicated to Cambodia in order to understand the roots of the Khmer Rouge movement and the political evolution taking place in the country. Starting from the reflections that emerged on that occasion, this paper, in the first part, analyses the birth of the Khmer Rouge and the subsequent communist regime established in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. The second part is dedicated to an in-depth examination of the impunity of crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge period of power. It retraces the steps that led, in 2003, to the agreement between the United Nations and the Cambodian government to establish the Extraodinary Chambers in the courts of Cambodia. The concluding part of the work examines the activities of the Tribunal between 2007 and 2022, the critical issues that emerged, the final verdicts pronounced by the judges, and finally questions the impact that the Extraodinary Chambers have had in Cambodia and the legacy of the Tribunal itself now that the criminal proceedings have ended.