Lessons from Cambodia Redefine Path Toward Global Justice

By Anna Ansari '11


In the not-so-successful 2002 film adaptation of Graham Greene’s eerily prophetic and insightful novel, “The Quiet American,” a main character opines that, “They say whatever you’re looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes.”  

I knew what I was looking for—a job and a deeper understanding of Chinese law, something about which I am passionate—when I decided to spend this semester, my last, participating in Brooklyn Law School’s study abroad exchange program at Hong Kong University. I did not, however, know or expect to encounter in these few short months, an experience that not only would be so enriched by the public international law concepts, laws and conventions that I studied at Brooklyn Law School in courses such as International Law and International Human Rights, but also would challenge, educate and provoke my thinking in such an unexpected fashion as I encountered during my February “Reading Week” break from HKU.

When I booked a round-trip ticket from Hong Kong to Saigon for 12 days, I knew that I would be exploring a country, culture and history inescapably tied to 20th century U.S. history, consciousness and sensitivity, but I did not expect to spend seven of those 12 days in neighboring Cambodia, exploring not only the spectacular temples of Angkor Wat, but also the atrocities and legacy of the Khmer Rouge—a short-lived government about which, prior to this trip, I knew very little. Pol Pot. The Killing Fields. These names were familiar to me, but did not yet hold any real deeper meaning.

I did not know, for instance, that over the course of the Khmer Rouge’s four years in power, the regime killed an estimated 2 million of its own people, out of a population of approximately 8 million, that even needing reading glasses could brand you an intellectual and condemn you to a short life of torture, eventual extermination and a place in a mass grave. I did not know that resistance to the establishment of a tribunal to bring those responsible for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge to justice in the 1980s was spearheaded by China and the United States, or that a tribunal, when finally established in 1997 in conjunction with the United Nations stagnated, only to deliver its first conviction in July 2010—the man known as “Dutch,” who ran the Tuol Sleng Prison, where between 1975 and 1979, an estimated 17,000 people were held, tortured, starved and bussed out to be killed to the Khmer Rouge’s Killing Fields, was convicted to 35 years in prison for war crimes.

Visiting Tuol Sleng Prison and the Killing Fields taught me not only historical facts of the Khmer Rouge’s regime, but also spurred me to think seriously and deeply about the importance and necessity of international criminal law and the concept of “global justice,” thoughts and notions that continued to percolate in my mind over the course of my five post-Cambodia days in Saigon.

For a number of years now, the International Law Society has sponsored a “Global Justice Fellowship,” of which I was a recipient in 2009. We at ILS distinguish this fellowship from the International Human Rights Fellowship both in name and because our Fellowship is entirely student-run and supported. However, though different in name from the Human Rights Fellowship, we do not delve into the substantive difference between “human rights” and “global justice,” and, in fact, the ILS fellowship is open to students pursing internships that fall into both categories. There is, however, a difference, and one I never understood fully, despite having been awarded the fellowship, having acted as the Fellowship Chair the following year, and as ILS Co-President this year; this “Reading Week” break has made me realize to some extent what that difference is and what “global justice” entails.

Starting in 2006, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the formal name for the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, has sponsored a three-pronged study tour for interested citizens—first stop, Tuol Sleng Prison; second stop, the Killing Fields, and finally, the Tribunal itself. Since the tour’s initiation, over 70,000 Cambodians have participated. These are citizens who lost family and friends under the Khmer Rouge, as well as former “combatants” who participated in the atrocities of and under the direction of the Khmer Rouge. They go to see and remember, to understand and repent, to memorialize those whose lives were cut short by the Khmer Rouge, and to demonstrate their need for and belief in bringing those responsible for the death of their countrymen and the destruction of their society and homeland to justice. They go, as a former Khmer Rouge combatant quoted on a display in Tuol Sleng put it, “to prevent [them] from having such a regime again.” They go in the name of “legal accountability and justice.”

This past fall, at the close of Professor Lee’s International Law course, he asked who had begun the course believing in the importance and efficacy of public international law, and would now leave believing the opposite. It turned out that the majority of the class, myself included, would leave believing less in international law than at the outset.

After this trip to Cambodia, however, I actually feel the opposite and now believe strongly in the importance of binding international rules and laws that can and will hold legally accountable those that break them and, in doing so, provide justice to the victims and survivors left in their wake—not only because to have mechanisms can provide global justice and hopefully prevent future atrocities, but also because of the importance of providing closure and solace to the victims and survivors. Cambodia has finally begun to have such justice meted out and closure provided; Vietnam, on the other hand, has not.
I was warned by a friend not to visit the War Remnants Museum in Saigon (recently renamed as such after years of being known as the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes), was told that it was “intensely disturbing,” but I visited the museum all the same. And, it was intensely disturbing. It was disturbing to be confronted with the Vietnamese depiction of America’s actions and legacy in Vietnam—through photo after photo of dead Vietnamese men, women and children, and photo after photo of Vietnamese disfigured by American chemical warfare.

What was most disturbing, however, was the clear lack of closure with which Vietnam and its people suffer, their inability to ever bring us to justice.  While it was the placard in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Sleng Prison pointing out that an ECCC study tour participant had recognized a family member whom they had never known what had become of from amongst the photos of inmates on display, in Saigon’s War Remnants Museum, it was the following 2009 letter to President Obama, written by an Agent Orange victim, that moved me the most—a cry for justice, a cry for assistance, a cry for closure.

President Obama!

My name is Tran Thi Hoan. I am 23 years old and was born in Duc Linh District, Binh Thuan Province, Vietnam with no legs and without a left hand. I am a second generation victim of Agent Orange. My parents were exposed to this deadly chemical, left over from the Vietnam War, while farming our land. Agent Orange has not only killed people living during the war, but has been killing several generations of their children, among whom I am one. It damages my country and other nations beyond imagination. I am writing to ask for your help in providing assistance to more than 3 million victims of Agent Orange like me in Vietnam and for the children of U.S. veterans suffering from Agent Orange in the U.S.

I have read your letter to your beloved daughters, in which you put it like this: “These are the things I want for you—to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world. And I want every child to have the same chances to learn and dream and grow and thrive that you girls have. That’s why I’ve taken our family on this great adventure.” I was deeply moved by the love you have for your daughters and the dreams you have for children of other countries, and I believe that you could have included children of Vietnam in your words. I dream that you were including innocent children slowly killed by dioxin, and their suffering. I dream you had in mind what to do to help every child to have the same changes to learn and to dream and grow and thrive like your daughters.

A few words about myself. When I was born, my parents were consumed with grief when they saw me. When I was in junior high school, I studied hard to become a doctor to help people in my hometown because they were so poor. But this dream was taken away from me. When I entered college, I was advised not to study medicine because I had no legs and only one hand. I was told not to dream about raising a family for fear that my children would be born deformed like me or even worse. From my personal story—just one among three million victims of Agent Orange—you may guess how our parents suffer. 

You are a father of two beautiful daughters, and you know how parents love their children. U.S. Vietnam veterans, sick from Agent Orange, have gotten some compensation for their illnesses, but their children have not. How do their children live a decent life the way your daughters do?

In the case of my poor country, Vietnamese veterans of the U.S. war and their children and grandchildren here have not received any justice from the U.S. courts: they refused to hear our case against the U.S. chemical companies. I know because I was one of the plaintiffs, representing millions of Agent Orange victims, in a lawsuit against 37 U.S. chemical manufacturers in U.S. Federal Court, the two richest of which are Dow and Monsanto. 

This denial of justice may have rendered void your dream for every child to have the same chances to learn and dream and grow and thrive. When I visited U.S. cities last October, I found the American people were deeply concerned about the problem of Agent Orange. Yet we are now faced with the lack of many things—sufficient medical care, vocational and physical rehabilitations, long term care, home care. The land like my family’s, which contains dioxin in the soil, has yet to be cleaned up. 

I understand that you are very busy with the urgent matters that face your country. I hope that you will consider the damage that the poison Agent Orange does to the lives of its victims with as much urgency because every life is important to the future of humanity. I hope that you, a symbol of hope not only for the United States, but also for the world, a father who loves his children dearly, and a man of humanity, will spare a little time to resolve this forgotten problem.

Thank you!

I returned to Hong Kong from Vietnam and Cambodia with a new understanding of and appreciation for public international law and global justice. This may not have been what I was necessarily “looking for” when I came here this semester, but is certainly something that I have “found here.” I am still a student, however—we all are and always will be, no matter our graduation dates and degrees—and can only hope the education I receive after graduation continues to provoke, challenge and inspire me as much as that which I have learned here and in the BLS classrooms has. As the quotation from “The Quiet American” continues, “They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived.”