Settlement for Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge Dilemma

As this case study explains, the search for a comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia was complicated by the fact that it was simultaneously a national, regional, great power, and United Nations issue. The world tried a variety of diplomatic methods during the 1980s to resolve the situation, ranging from a special U.N. conference in 1981 to informal contacts among the leading personalities, special meetings of the five permanent members of the Security Council, mediation by the U.N. secretary general, and formal negotiating conferences in Paris, Jakarta, and Tokyo. This study examines the process that would eventually lead to a Cambodian settlement, and encourages students to assess why compromise was so elusive and which actors were most responsible for the impasse.

This teaching case is available for purchase here.

Authored by Joseph J. Zasloff and MacAlister Brown.

Published by Georgetown.