Among the available books on colonial Cambodia, Sally Low's Colonial Law Making presents the most thorough account of the contestations, negotiation, and power shift among French colonizers and the colonized Cambodian elites.Low's monograph, consisting of nine well-crafted and coherent chapters, effectively conveys ideas concerning the legal arena, which became the most contested ground among various political factions after France singed the 1863 Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Protection with the then Cambodian ruler, Prince Norodom.The book chronologically traces the development of colonial legal reforms from the French's first attempts to reform Cambodian courts and legal processes in the late 19 th century through to the early years of postindependence in the 1950s, when the colonial legal heritage became embedded in Cambodia's judicial system and constitution.The book's main argument centers on a series of interventions imposed by top French colonial officials upon the existing indigenous legal system, which was deemed unfit for modernizing the kingdom.Consequently, new legal codes were introduced, the judicial system was restructured, and more French officials participated in legal proceedings and judgements of indigenous courts.However, as Low discusses, "Cambodians were neither powerless nor passive" (20).In fact, the story of colonial law making unfolds through multi-layered and complex power struggles and negotiations, which sometimes involved violence, punishments, and military forces, and at other times stemmed from misunderstandings among French colonial officials, Cambodian kings, and local influential elites.Each played a role in shaping colonial law, and their exchanges-including efforts to protect and expand their influence and alliances-challenge the simplistic dichotomy between collaboration and resistance (21).
Theara Thun (Mon,) studied this question.