Human Rights in Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge

Abstract

This article will first consider the decline of human rights in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge’s Democratic Kampuchea regime. This will be compared with the situation in the Vietnamese-backed regime which followed Democratic Kampuchea, and with the post-conflict regime that was established after the Paris Peace Agreements of 1991. In particular, it will examine the different ways Cambodians lost their human rights under the revolutionary socialist regime of Democratic Kampuchea, the postrevolutionary socialist regime of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea, and the neoliberal post-socialist conditions of contemporary Cambodia. The article will conclude with a consideration of the future of human rights in Cambodia.