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In keeping with its vision to foster sustainable human rights reform processes in the Asia Pacific region, AIJI is working on a series of monitoring, outreach and legacy initiatives aimed at maximizing the impact of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (or ‘Khmer Rouge Tribunal’) in Cambodia. The tribunal was established in 2003, to try senior leaders and those most responsible for the atrocities committed in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979. There are currently five accused persons under investigation: Kaing Guek Eav, alias ‘Duch’, Ieng Sary, Ieng Thirith, Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea. The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, alias ‘Duch’ begins on March 30, 2009 and is anticipated to take three-six months.

AIJI’s programs in Cambodia have two primary aims: (i) to ensure that the tribunal’s proceedings comply with internationally recognized fair trial standards; and (ii) to maximize the educational potential of the work of the tribunal. With regard to the former, AIJI has assembled a trial monitoring team   that will be responsible for writing weekly reports on the work of the tribunal throughout the trial phase. These reports will be disseminated widely, both inside and outside Cambodia. With regard to the latter, AIJI is creating a series of films that will be broadcast on Cambodian television through local television station, CTN to an audience of approximately 2.5 million Cambodians weekly. The films will endeavor to explain the complex legal proceedings in an engaging and informative manner, through the use of trial footage, expert commentary and vox-pop interviews. The films can be downloaded here .

AIJI Trial Monitoring Team in Phnom Penh, upon the completion of their two-week training course, held at the offices of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Cambodia.

Trial Monitoring at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

Building upon five years of experience of the War Crimes Studies Center in trial monitoring in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Rwanda, and Indonesia, AIJI has established a regionally-based trial monitoring program at the Khmer Rouge tribunal for the duration of the upcoming Khmer Rouge trials.  The goals of the program are:

1. to widen public awareness of the ECCC in Cambodia, in the region, and internationally, through the dissemination of weekly trial reports both describing and assessment the proceedings as they unfold;
2. to train young lawyers by giving them the experience of engaging in monitoring and legal analysis at an international tribunal, under expert supervision;and
3. to develop a regional network of young human rights lawyers who are able to engage with justice processes and to assess their overall effectiveness.

In addition to a permanent AIJI monitor, the monitoring team for the first trial--that of Kaing Guek Eav--will comprise young lawyers and advanced law students from China, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Cambodia, alongside monitors from Switzerland and Germany.  Further information on the team and their respective roles can be accessed here.  The goals of the program are:

1.To widen public awareness of the ECCC in the region;

 

2.  To train young lawyers by giving them the experience of working at an international tribunal and engaging in monitoring and legal analysis under expert supervision;

 

3.  To develop a regional network of young human rights lawyers.

The project is working with educational, professional, and non-government organizations in these countries to provide monitors and identify potential funding sources for their participation. AIJI Michelle Staggs Kelsall, Deputy Director of AIJI, will train and supervise the monitors, and manage the program. Individual monitors will write reports on the proceedings for dissemination in their countries and posting on the web. The team will also produce periodic analytical assessments of the trials.

AIJI has also gratefully engaged several international partners in this program.  In particular, it would like to thank the relationships established and is  currently developing relationships with the University of Marburg , Bucerius Law School , the University of Zurich , and the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa , who have all agreed in-principle to join the program.  Monitors from Zurich and Marburg form part of the first team.