State Sovereignty, Bioethics, and Political Geographies: The Practice of Medicine under the Khmer Rouge

This paper combines insights from political philosophy, bioethics, and political geography to examine the practice of medicine by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide. Through a discussion of both destructive and constructive health-related policies and practices enacted by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979, this paper documents how the practice of medicine provides a broader understanding of state sovereignty and the right to live or to let die. In so doing this paper contributes to our understanding in two areas: first, to the specific geographies of the Cambodian genocide and, second, the politics surrounding the calculated management of life and death.