DescriptionGenocide is the most horrific crime in human existence. While there have been attempts to bring those who have committed genocide to justice, they have not always been successful. While this crime occurred over fifty years ago in Cambodia, only a few perpetrators were ever tried in a court of law, and of those only three were convicted. This thesis hypothesizes that there are multiple factors that played into this, including the geopolitics of the Cold War, the legal definitions of genocide, and Cambodia's own political system. This thesis explores these factors through a historical lens, concluding that while there are several reasons for the low number of prosecutions, none of them can be viewed in a vacuum. The factors intersect with one another and must be viewed as a complex whole. By showing the complexities of topics such as the Cambodian genocide, it is hoped that future trials will not be met with the same lack of appropriate prosecutions, and that the crime of genocide will no longer be able to occur.