Panel

The role of NGO’s in the institution of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

A tribunal designed to bring Khmer Rouge leaders to justice has finally been established thirty years after atrocities took place in Democratic Kampuchea. From 1975 to 1979 an estimated 1.7 million people died under Khmer Rouge rule in an attempt to revolutionize Cambodian society into one without class or ethnic differences.
The international community and the Cambodian government have engaged in a long battle over the formation of this tribunal. Only after six years of tortuous and complicated negotiations between the government of Cambodia and the United Nations, in 2003 the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) were finally settled. The Tribunal started its work in June 2007 after the adoption of internal rules. It is a hybrid tribunal that means it is a Cambodian court with international participation that applies international standards.
Throughout the negotiations with the United Nations to establish the ECCC, local and international NGO’s have played an important and active role in supporting the establishment of the tribunal and in guaranteeing impartiality, independence from political interference and the respect of international standards. They have always expressed serious concern about the politically interference of the Cambodian government on the Tribunal. Before the establishment of ECCC, they have also carried out important activities such as interviewing victims, collecting documents and reporting.
Now NGO’s are supporting the ECCC’s activities in different ways: some are assisting witnesses and victims with psychological counselling other are reporting in providing training and legal advice and representation.
They are also playing a key role in allowing victim to have their voice heard, providing public access to the tribunal, opening discussion throughout the judicial process, monitoring the Tribunal’s activities and outlining the challenges of the state of human rights in Cambodia. Local NGO’s have also launched outreached programs in order to bring Court’s messages to the Cambodian people and organized public forum to promote national reconciliation, increase the awareness of the importance of the tribunal.
This panel aims at presenting and investigating the role played by local and international NGO’s throughout the negotiations to establish the ECCC and analyzing the kind of support that they are now providing to the Tribunal’s activities.
The panel will focus in particular on the contribution offered by the NGO’s in promoting victim participation in the Court proceedings. The Tribunal's rules on victim participation are in fact ground-breaking because victims are permitted to join in the proceedings as civil parties, going beyond the regime of victims' participation before the International Criminal Court. A Victim Unit has been established inside the Tribunal to support the ECCC by assisting victims who want to participate in the proceedings. This not only improves the court’s access to evidence, but it helps to increase its legitimacy in the eyes of the local population. As is well known, trough victim participation criminal retributive justice may also become restorative justice. Therefore the panel will also outline the role of the Tribunal not only in guaranteeing criminal persecution but also in promoting victim’s board participation and national reconciliation.

Contact information for interested paper contributors: arianna.miorandi@unive.it