A year after he received this letter, Kofi Annan appointed a Group of Experts to assess the feasibility of bringing Khmer Rouge leaders to justice. Sir Ninian Stephen, from Australia, served as Chair; Judge Rajsoomer Lallah, from Mauritius, and Professor Steven Ratner, of the United States, completed the Group. Their report, published in February 1999, recommended the creation of an international tribunal, along the lines of the ad-hoc Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, to judge the crimes of the Khmer Rouge period, as well as a truth commission to establish the facts of what occurred during that time. In the two and a half years since then, there have been protracted negotiations between a Cambodian government task force on the one hand, and the U.N. on the other, regarding the composition and scope of a genocide tribunal for Cambodia. (There was never any significant momentum in Cambodia behind the idea of a truth commission.)

The plan agreed to by the Cambodian government and the United Nations reflects a series of political compromises, and so does not necessarily resemble the kind of court suggested in the letter signed by Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Hun Sen in 1997. That letter stated, "We are aware of similar efforts to respond to the genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and ask that similar assistance be given to Cambodia." But the Cambodian tribunal, as it is currently envisioned, is neither modeled on the ad-hoc tribunals in Arusha and The Hague, nor will its administrative structure follow these examples. Why? Part of the answer lies in the changes that have taken place in the Cambodian political arena. In July 1997, Hun Sen’s Cambodian Peoples’ Party effectively ousted Prince Ranariddh’s FUNCINPEC party from the shaky coalition government that had been in place since the U.N. sponsored elections in 1993. Although Prince Ranariddh was persuaded to assume the post of President of the National Assembly, Hun Sen effectively took control of the policy making process over the tribunal. After a series of strained meetings with UN officials over the shape of the tribunal, Hun Sen wrote to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in September 1999 outlining three options for UN involvement in a Khmer Rouge tribunal:

1) Provide a legal team and participate in a tribunal conducted in Cambodia's existing courts;

2) Provide a legal team which would only act in an advisory capacity to the tribunal; or

3) Withdraw completely from the proposed tribunal.