Victim participation and minorities in internationalised criminal trials: ethnic Vietnamese civil parties at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

In 2010, the Co-Investigating Judges of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) charged four senior leaders of the former Khmer Rouge regime with genocide against two minority groups, the Cham and the ethnic Vietnamese. This article examines the role of minority victims in a genocide trial, using the specific case study of a group of ethnic Vietnamese survivors who joined as civil parties before the hybrid criminal proceedings at the ECCC. The article highlights the challenges that arise in the process of including minority narratives within the broader context of a mass atrocity trial, by describing the participation process civil parties have undertaken to date. Importantly, the case of the ethnic Vietnamese survivors shows how victim participation in a criminal trial can shed light on larger, contemporary human rights issues affecting a minority group. In the present case, a number of ethnic Vietnamese civil parties have sought access to, or recognition of, Cambodian nationality, through a request for ‘collective and moral reparations’ under the ECCC’s Internal Rules.