This book offers a detailed and fascinating case study of the use of law and the administration of justice by the French in the Indochinese protectorate of the Kingdom of Cambodia between 1863 and 1954. At its heart is the struggle between the semi-divine institution of the monarchy (and the personalities who filled that role) and the colonial administrators who attempted to install French principles of law in the Cambodian legal and justice system. It is, as the author describes it, a ‘story of contests and exchanges’ (p 24) between the two sets of actors, although this is not a binary history, as there were internal struggles within the French side. Overall, it is a story of personalities and struggles over principles, and a history of colonisation through the use of laws and jurisdictions. This history is presented in a most engaging way, with vignettes and anecdotes featuring individual personalities and specific incidents. Apart from detailed biographical information on some personalities, the book contains a number of photos from archival sources, maps, and illustrations.

The book's introduction begins in 1925 with the opening of the new Palais de Justice in Phnom Penh, a moment meant to celebrate Cambodia's unique devolution of its own indigenous jurisdiction and independent judicial power. The court had been designed to symbolise a merger of Khmer traditions and French legal principles. Two bronze plaques depicting Yama, the god of death and justice, flanked by scales of justice, one in French and one in Khmer, were strategically placed in the Criminal Court to symbolise the two traditions (Chapter 6, pp 126–128).

The author situates the book within the tradition of studies on colonial legacies to highlight the uniqueness of the Cambodian situation. By drawing comparisons with other French and European colonial contexts in Indochina and Southeast Asia (and sometimes further afield), the book engages with theories of colonialisation and makes universal observations about the legacies of colonial rule on legal systems. The interesting and unique feature of the Cambodian situation, as the author points out, was the clash between Cambodian and French ideals on principles such as the separation of law and religion and the tradition of codification. The author highlights the importance of the indigenous jurisdiction in Cambodia, but takes as her starting point Baxi's ‘practices of violence’ theory (p 19), which is illustrated in particular by the failed narratives of localisation (as discussed in Chapter 5).

The book is structured largely in chronological order, with the first part (Chapters 2 to 5) describing the struggles between Cambodian and French officials from 1863 to 1916. Chapter 2 (‘Fonctionnaires, Mandarins and Cosmologies of Law’) describes the background to French colonisation in Indochina and the 1863 Treaty of Protection signed with Prince Norodom Sihanouk. It contextualises this event in Khmer law, social structures, and economy. Chapter 3 (‘The Jurisdictional Dispossession of King Norodom’) covers the seminal period from 1863 to 1898. It advances three themes: how the French used their extraterritorial rights under the 1863 treaty to create jurisdictions that extended their rule; the competing French and Cambodian narratives of protection; and the fact that these decades defined the remainder of the French rule. Chapter 4 (‘Codification Begins’) describes a fraught and frustrating process from 1901 to 1911 in which contests for power were a constant factor, involving a ‘cautious mixture of negotiation and coercion’ (p 100). During this period, the French introduced three new Criminal Codes, which were justified on the grounds that the Cambodian laws were being modernised rather than replaced (p 88).

Chapter 5 (‘Rural Jurisdictions and the 1916 Affair’) is an important chapter, providing a neat segue between the earlier chronological chapters and the themes of the final section of the book. It describes the unrest which French rule had created by ‘disturbing local hierarchies’ and attempting to impose new norms on a rural society. In 1908, the French had lessened the power of the Cambodian governors and increased that of the French résidents. This had ‘unsettled’ traditional relations in the countryside by creating a ‘hybrid bureaucracy’ in which ‘colonial state structures were administered by Cambodian mandarins who remained immersed in personalised relations of power’ (p 106). Further, the codification process ‘began to reclassify matters of vital interest to the lives of ordinary people [by prioritising] civil disputes according to their monetary value’ (p 110).

The ‘Affair’, as it was termed, began in December 1915 when 40,000 to 100,000 peasants travelled to Phnom Penh to petition the King about their grievances against the imposition of corvée (forced labour) and taxes by the French. This was accompanied by widespread disobedience, protests, and unrest. It led to criminal charges against 560 people, putting the provincial governors’ legal expertise and familiarity with the 1911 Criminal Codes to the test. The incident ultimately revealed significant gaps in their capacity and training to enforce the newly implemented codes (p 108).

The 1916 trials provided some other important lessons and served as yet another opportunity for the King to remind the French of his connection with his subjects, as he was once again called upon to ‘help to pacify the population’ (p 115). However, the trials did not lead to the expected reform of the provincial courts. This was partly due to another complication in the story, a clash of both views and personalities between Résident Supérieur François Baudoin and Prosecutor General Gabriel Michel over the fate of the Cambodian provincial courts.

The 1916 Affair led to reforms to the courts introduced in 1922, which are described in Chapter 6 in the final section of the book. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 round off the historical chapters by discussing thematic issues and problems that arose from the French reforms, including the role of lawyers (Chapter 7) and judicial independence (Chapter 8). Each of these chapters, and the final Chapter 9, reference the 1925 opening and describe the French experience in Cambodia as an example of ‘colonial theatre’. This is an apt metaphor to reflect the engaging style of this book, which brings history to life through anecdotes, a focus on personalities, and archival photographs. The author has made extensive use of French and Cambodian archives and her French language skills to produce a rich and unique study that unsettles universalised accounts of colonial legacies. From this account we can see the legacies that continue to play out in the modern Kingdom of Cambodia.