Building the legal architecture of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

This chapter examines the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) as a form of legal architecture—a place where law resides and is constructed both spatially and legally. Attending a public hearing at the ECCC involves entering a space ordered by law. To understand the ECCC as legal architecture, however, requires analysing its history of legislating and building inseparately as the ECCC physical existence constitutes a place where legality resides. Drawing on Hans Lindahl’s theory, this chapter argues that the ECCC architecture embodies the fundamental distinction of any imaginable legal order: the distinction between an “inside”—a place of law—and an “outside”—a place of non-law. This distinction underscores the ECCC contested site, as it reveals tensions between law and non-law, between international law and national politics. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates that the ECCC represents legal architecture, where the lawful and lawless are continuously contested.