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.
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