Initial hearing prior to Duch's trial closes with debate on role of civil parties

Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 25/02/2006: Visitors in genocide museum Tuol Sleng, formerly Khmer Rouge torture centre S-21, look at picture of a body found in that very room when Vietnamese troops arrived in 1979. (Photo: John Vink/ Magnum)

19-02-2009
By Stephanie Gée
Ka-set

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) represent the first internationalised criminal tribunal to accept that victims register as civil parties. This comes partly from the fact that the hybrid jurisdiction pertains firstly to the civil law system, which was adopted by Cambodia. As a result, everything remains to be agreed to define the role of civil parties in an international criminal law system shaped until then by common law. The debate has started between the proponents of the two legal systems at the ECCC during the second and last day of the initial hearing, which is aimed to establish the rules for the trial of Duch, the former head of Khmer Rouge prison S-21 and the first who is due to appear before the Court, probably in late March.

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