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A recent article by Brendan Brady in Foreign Policy, “Cambodia Confronts the “G” Word” indicates that genocide will be added soon to the charges against the four remaining defendants for their alleged role in the mass killing of ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims. At this point, the case information sheets for the four remaining defendants that are posted to the tribunal’s website do not list genocide as a charge.

What’s the hold up with adding the big “G”? One problem with legally finding genocide hinges on the definition of “group” in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Based on Article II of the Convention, genocide is certain acts intended to destroy a “national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Experts can argue whether the ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims who were slaughtered were killed because they were members of certain ethnic or religious groups (supporting a charge of genocide), or whether they were targeted by the Khmer Rouge because they were political or economic enemies of the regime (not supporting a charge of genocide).

Brady reports that Cambodian advocates attach “enormous symbolic weight” to the added charges of genocide. Others argue that the political nature of the ethnic Vietnamese and Cham Muslims’ dissent does not fit the definition of “group” for the purposes of the Genocide Convention.

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