Was Cambodia’s US$300 million Khmer Rouge tribunal worth it?

After nine years, the UN-assisted tribunal has convicted just three people for the communist group’s killing of 1.7 million people

Critics say it did not accomplish any of the established goals of reconciliation, symbolic justice and combating impunity

But some say the court has made a huge contribution to helping the world and Cambodians better understand what occurred during the regime

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A man cleans a skull near a mass grave at the Chaung Ek torture camp run by the Khmer Rouge. The last surviving leaders of the communist Khmer Rouge regime that brutally ruled Cambodia in the 1970s were convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by an international tribunal. Photo: AP

Published: 6:45pm, 17 Nov 2018Updated: 9:20am, 19 Nov 2018

After spending nine years and more than US$300 million to prosecute the leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge responsible for the deaths of 1.7 million of their countrymen, a United Nations-assisted tribunal has ended up convicting only three people for the communist group’s heinous actions.

Was it worth it?

These kinds of proceedings do not run cheap. The longer-running tribunals covering genocide in Rwanda and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia ran up costs of as much as US$2 billion – though both tried many more people than were called to account in Cambodia for crimes committed during the 1975-79 regime of the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

On Friday, the tribunal convicted Nuon Chea, 92, and Khieu Samphan, 87, the last surviving Khmer Rouge leaders, of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and sentenced them to life in prison. The only other person who has been convicted is Kaing Guek Eav, known as Duch, who as head of the Khmer Rouge prison system ran the infamous Tuol Sleng torture Centre in Phnom Penh.

Justice is the primary goal. But international tribunals, trying people accused of crimes on a national scale, also serve to promote human rights and establish a historical record, among other targets.

Even the most bullish observers acknowledge the shortcomings of the Cambodian tribunal, officially called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC. The rules hammered out in extensive negotiations between the UN and the Cambodian government hobbled its proceedings in ways that were not always foreseeable.

Former Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea (top) and former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan sitting inside the courtroom of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) during their verdict, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photo” Reuters