Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal Given Go-Ahead

A war crimes tribunal to try those responsible for the mass killings of Cambodians under the Khmer Rouge is finally within sight, after the United Nations announced on April 29 that enough money had been raised for the court to be launched.

Under an agreement between the U.N. General Assembly and the Cambodian government signed in 2003, the tribunal was to be set up after there were sufficient funds for the tribunal to operate for three years.  The three-year budget for the tribunal is around $56 million, of which the U.N. will provide $43m and the Cambodian government $13m.

An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were killed during the four years of communist Khmer Rouge rule between 1975 and 1979.  The leader of the Khmer Rouge, Pol Pot, died in 1998.  Two of his former lieutenants -- Ta Mok and Duch, who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center -- are held in the custody of the Cambodian government.

The most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leaders -- Pol Pot's deputy Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, who was Cambodia's head of state under the Khmer Rouge regime -- are currently at liberty.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal will made up predominantly of Cambodian judges and prosecutors, but the agreement of at least one international judge will be required for conviction.  The tribunal has been heavily criticized by human rights groups, who claim there are insufficient guarantees of judicial independence.  In a statement from April 2003, Human Rights Watch said that

"so long as the Cambodian government continues to exercise direct control over the Cambodian judiciary...any tribunal with a majority of Cambodian judges and a Cambodian co-prosecutor will fail the most basic test of credibility with Cambodians and the international community."

During negotiations over the tribunal with the Cambodian government, the United Nations had consistently pressed for a majority of judges to be appointed from outside Cambodia, but they were unable to win agreement on this point.  In the end, the U.N. decided that its misgivings about the tribunal should not override its desire to secure some measure of justice for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge before most of those responsible had died.  But the agreement leaves open the possibility that the United Nations will be thought to have endorsed a judicial process that falls well short of recognized international standards.

If everything goes according to schedule, the first trials should begin by next year.  But some observers remain sceptical about whether the Cambodian government really intends to allow a genuine investigation into the Khmer Rouge's actions to take place.  Kek Galabru, president of the Cambodian human rights group Licadho, told the Guardian that "if the government really had the political will to establish this tribunal we should have had one already...We are not sure that the tribunal will happen, even though the government has no more excuses to delay."

Related chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know:

Cambodia

Persecutions on Political, Racial or Religious Grounds

Related Links:

Khmer Rouge to Face U.N. Tribunal

by John Aglionby

The Guardian, May 2, 2005

Agreement Between UN and Cambodia on Khmer Rouge Trials Takes Effect

United Nations Press Release

April 29, 2005

Serious Flaws: Why the U.N. General Assembly Should Require Changes to the Draft Khmer Rouge Tribunal Agreement

Human Rights Watch

April 2003

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