Tribunal of Khmer Rouge also known as Extraordinary Chambers of Cambodia courts (ECCC) or tribunal of Cambodia, is a court established to try the senior most accountable Khmer Rouge members for purported desecrations of serious crime and international law prolonged during the genocide of Cambodia (Ciociari, 2006). The ECCC was build up as a part of an agreement amid Cambodia’s royal government and United Nations. Its participants include both foreign and local judges and are deliberated a hybrid court since it was formed by the government in combination with the United Nations, however it does not depend on them with tribunals apprehended in Cambodia by use of international staff and Cambodian (Heindel, 2010). This document describes the tribunal of Khmer Rouge, its charges, and benefits of this process of the tribunal, the worthiness of the result and lessons one can learn from the tribunal processes of the same kind.
Since 1975 until when the Vietnamese people overran in 1979, Cambodia faced one of the worst killings in the 20th century that caused deaths of approximately 1.7 million people. The United Nations-backed ECCC was then created in 2006 to examine the crimes in contradiction of humanity and detain those in charge to account (Ciociari, 2006). The maximum penalty was life imprisonment. But since the initial stage, politicization and corruption claims have dogged ECCC’s glacial development and halting the proceedings for a long period because the national staff had gone on strike after they were unpaid (Heindel, 2010). However, agreements were finally met to restore funding after UN were given certain assertions. The initial ECCC was then made as a hybrid panel which comprised elements of domestic and international law where the proceedings were heard by Cambodian and foreign judges (Ciociari, 2006).
Among the three individuals sentenced, two were participants of top circle of radical rule communist; Samphan Khieu, 85 state’s chief, and Chea Nuon, 90, number 2 in the hierarchy were convicted to life imprisonment due to crimes contrary to humanity, genocide amongst other crimes (Ciorciari & Heindel, 2014). The third criminal Kaing Guek Eav, recognized as Duch who ordered an ill-famed prison of Khmer Rouge was given a life sentence in prison for a crime against mortality.
In determining whether this tribunal stood worth it, the task’s magnitude is considered. Demographic studies show that more than 1.7 million people died under this Rouge of Khmer which represents almost one-quarter of people of Cambodia (Ciorciari & Heindel, 2014). Millions were enforced to labor in inhumane and cruel conditions. The new authorized matters will set important standards whose charges include rape, labor camps, internal purges, alleged genocide, detention centers and forced marriage which is against the regime’s policy of selecting partners and couples consummating marriage (Ciorciari & Heindel, 2014).
Benefits of this hybrid tribunal include the court’s ability to express final judgment seen as somewhat fair and legitimately sound as seen in trials of Duch (Heindel, 2010). It has expressed a measurable amount of justice both for the losses and the dead’s spirits. Also in finding fairness for Khmer Rouge cruelty, demonstrates a frankly incredible accomplishment (Heindel, 2010).
The tribunals also brought the crimes openly in the society making them further accessible enabling invention of new chronological descriptions and new normative ideas for directing Cambodian society (Ciociari, 2006). The ECCC similarly has a vast symbolic worth as it acts as a potent declaration to have previously superior leaders in that dock. It is more important when those previous leaders admit guilt and apologize as perceived at ECCC (Ciorciari & Heindel, 2014).
In conclusion, the tribunal of Khmer Rouge demonstrates that the form of war crime tribunal remains a role of a political likelihood than the ability to objectively assess the cost and benefit of different models. Also from these, the benefits of the international penal justice to post conflicting societies do not help (Ciociari, 2006). Thus more refined ways of negotiating obvious conflicts in political and legal factors are required in the concept and practice 0f universal criminal laws whenever models of universal fairness are followed. As a result war crime trials offer such paybacks as closure for victims, national reconciliation, and healing (Ciorciari & Heindel, 2014).
References.
Ciorciari, J. D., & Heindel, A. (2014). Hybrid justice: The extraordinary chambers in the courts of Cambodia.
Ciociari, J. D. (2006). The Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Phnom Penh: Documentation Center of Cambodia.
Heindel, A., & Documentation Center of Cambodia. (2010). The Duch verdict: Khmer Rouge tribunal case 001: is being served for the 14,000 prisoners at S-21 (Tuol Sleng Prison). Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Documentation Center of Cambodia.
