'Worth the Effort'? Assessing the Khmer Rouge Tribunal' by Diane Orentlicher
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Every international war crimes court has attracted controversy, but none more than the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). Now in its twilight years, the ECCC has sparked robust debate since the late 1990s, before it was even launched. During negotiations aimed at creating a tribunal to address crimes of the Khmer Rouge, United Nations (UN) officials and others debated whether a court acceptable to Cambodia would be worthy of UN support. Today, the fulcrum of debate is whether the ECCC was ‘worth the effort’ it has required.
While myriad aspects of the ECCC’s performance are crucial to its legacy, this Article explores one question of overarching importance: whether the court’s performance has justified a central risk the UN assumed when it agreed to support the court — that case selection would be improperly influenced by the Cambodian government. More particularly, it assesses performance against two criteria: How well have safeguards against such interference worked? Are survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities and other Cambodian citizens satisfied with ECCC justice?
