Case 183 - Settlement for Cambodia: the Khmer Rouge Dilemma

Zasloff, Joseph J. and MacAlister Brown

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.