Thirty years have passed since the signing of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements (PPAs) and while the full history of the agreements has yet to be written and the historiography thereof continues to develop, the anniversary of their signing provides an important opportunity to examine how the PPAs took shape and their subsequent importance and value to the development of Cambodia.

The PPAs are a comprehensive political framework that brought together 19 different state actors and marked the end of more than two decades of protracted conflict and internal strife that devastated Cambodia. These have been considered watershed agreements, yet at the same time, scholars and analysts continue to maintain a diversity of views concerning the PPAs, their effects, and their role for the kingdom both today and in future. The Royal Government of Cambodia has indicated that their key values were integrated into the 1993 Constitution and PPA commemoration is no longer celebrated as a national holiday.1 Many civil society actors and other key stakeholders view the principles of political development envisioned in the PPAs as a benchmark which has not yet been achieved and towards which Cambodians should continue to strive.