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Since 2006, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) have prosecuted international crimes committed between 17 April 1975 and 7 January 1979. In those years of Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge regime caused perhaps a quarter of Cambodia’s population to die through starvation, forced labour, torture and killings. An innovative “hybrid” tribunal with both Cambodian and international staff and procedures, the ECCC represents the key transformational mechanism to secure justice for these atrocities, leading Cambodia from its violent past toward a prosperous, rule-of-law-abiding democratic future.

Or so the story goes.

Alexander Laban Hinton holds up a mirror to this aspiration for “justice” and invites the reader to jump through, and find not one, but innumerable reflections of what transitional justice means—for different people, and in different times and spaces. He counters the idea that international crimes tribunals deliver a “better future” through prosecuting crimes, leading from a time and place of violence and authoritarianism toward reconciliation and stability, delivered by a liberal democratic state. Instead, he calls this idea of transitional justice “imaginary”, a “facade” that leaves out crucial matters—including the impact of power, geopolitics, and individual experiences.