by Vikram Ramaswamy
Abstract: nternational criminal law scholarship has long treated the judicial archive as passive evidentiary storage. This paper argues that judicial archives should be reframed from “storage memory” to “living memory,” capable of contributing to post-conflict transitional justice. Focusing on the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia during its residual phase, this paper provides the first systematic account of how a post-judicial tribunal has operationalized its archive. Through four representative case studies, the paper analyzes how the ECCC has curated and disseminated historical narratives under institutional constraints, and distills design principles for future post-conflict tribunals to more effectively leverage judicial archives.
Keywords: Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Residual Mechanism, Judicial Archive, Memory Studies, Transitional Justice, International Criminal Law (ICL).
