This thesis provides a detailed study of the five-year negotiations which led to the signing of the Paris Agreements in October 1991. It demonstrates that the Paris agreements were mainly brokered by the great powers by means of forceful persuasion (threats, discontinuation of aid, changing relation-ships). The rationale behind this statement is that the local Cambodian factions were totally dependent on their international sponsors and that the regional actors had little means to influence the negociation process because of their diplomatic isolation, their lack of leverage or their political divisions