Maria Elander – The Conversation

Heng Sinith/AP

July 14, 2025

UNESCO grants World Heritage status to Khmer Rouge atrocity sites – paving the way for other sites of conflict

Rachel Hughes, The University of Melbourne and Maria Elander, La Trobe University

The World Heritage listing raises timely questions, such as whether we might see nominations for sites from Australia’s own genocidal past.

The tribunal in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh is looking at whether some actions of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime meet the United Nations definition of genocide. Wikimedia Commons

November 15, 2018

Cambodians await crucial tribunal finding into 1970s brutal Khmer Rouge regime

Rachel Hughes, The University of Melbourne; Christoph Sperfeldt, The University of Melbourne, and Maria Elander, La Trobe University

A potentially historic ruling on genocide by a tribunal in Cambodia on Friday could unsettle understandings of the past among Cambodians - and create a precedent in international law.

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