Figuring Victims in International Criminal Justice: The Case of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. By Maria Elander. New York: Routledge, 2018.

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12410
• Published date: 01 June 2019
• Date: 01 June 2019

instead tip to either democratic rule or a more fully prerogative-

based state.

In this final chapter, Meierhenrich builds on the idea of the

“dual state,” and on the ethnographic legal tradition through

which it was developed, to focus on those “instances of authoritar-

ian rule in which a legal way of doing things coexists with an alter-

native mode of behavior: a violent way of doing things.”

Meierhenrich works here to build a definition through which we

can make sense of, and study, the role of authoritarian law—law

in regimes that are premised, at once, on wanton violence and

political rule, as well as an openness to legal reasoning and legal

disputing. He also provides us with analytical tools that draw on

research across law and social science. In so doing, Meierhenrich

opens up a whole new vista for the sociology of law, which forces

us to come to terms with—and indeed, even account for—the role

of law in authoritarian states, rather than chalking up these cases

to lawlessness or mere legal “window dressing.” Taking legality

seriously in these spaces can, as he suggests, even lead to internal

change and reform.

Meierhenrich’s book charts an innovative and far-reaching

research agenda for the sociology of law. And it is one that, by tak-

ing up the cultural understandings of positions of law in some of

the world’s most difficult situations, will advance theorizing and

research in the sociology of law across the board.

***

Figuring Victims in International Criminal Justice: The Case of

the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. By Maria Elander. New York:

Routledge, 2018.

Jamie Rowen, Department of Political Science and Legal Studies,

University of Massachusetts

Contributing to a growing body of literature on the constitutive

relationship between victims and international criminal law, Figur-

ing Victims in International Criminal Justice engages in a critical anal-

ysis of the Extraordinary Chambers of Cambodia (ECCC). This

unique court, designed to blend domestic and international crimi-

nal law, offers a distinct case to examine how international crimi-

nal law not only defines victims but also creates a particular idea

of the victim. Elander explains how those who suffered under the

628 Book Reviews