Experiments in International Criminal Justice: Lessons from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal

76 Pages Posted: 26 May 2013 Last revised: 21 Aug 2015

See all articles by John Ciorciari

John Ciorciari

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Anne Heindel

Documentation Center of Cambodia; Independent

Date Written: March 19, 2014

Abstract

A number of important legal and institutional experiments have been undertaken at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), a UN-backed tribunal established to try some of the most egregious crimes of the Pol Pot era. The ECCC is the first UN-supported hybrid criminal tribunal to mandate a majority of national judges and to divide key legal and administrative offices and funding mechanisms into distinct national and international sides. It also draws more heavily than any prior internationalized mass crimes process from the civil law tradition, including expansive roles for investigating judges and an ambitious mechanism permitting certain survivors to join the proceedings as civil parties. These experimental features — most of which were accepted reluctantly by the United Nations during difficult negotiations with the Cambodian government — have sometimes compromised the ECCC’s capacity to conduct fair, expeditious proceedings and carry out its administrative functions efficiently and transparently. This article traces some of the effects of the ECCC’s unique institutional features on various aspects of its performance and draws lessons that can help inform the design and management of mass crimes proceedings going forward.

Keywords: International criminal law, transitional justice, human rights, Cambodia, United Nations

Suggested Citation

Ciorciari, John and Heindel, Anne and Heindel, Anne, Experiments in International Criminal Justice: Lessons from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (March 19, 2014). Michigan Journal of International Law, vol. 35, no. 2 (2014), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2269925

John Ciorciari (Contact Author)

University of Michigan at Ann Arbor - Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy ( email )

735 South State Street, Weill Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~johncior/

Anne Heindel

Independent ( email )

Documentation Center of Cambodia ( email )

66 Preah Sihanouk Boulevard
Phnom Penh
Cambodia

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