The United Nations faces a credibility test. For more than a decade, it has supported the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC, a hybrid tribunal with national and international sides created to try “senior leaders” and others “most responsible” for atrocities of the Pol Pot regime, which enjoyed Chinese support.
The ECCC reflects a compromise between Western powers that favored U.N.-led justice and a Beijing-backed Cambodian government keen to exercise primary control.
The Cambodian government has repeatedly tested the U.N.’s resolve, interfering in the court’s work and stalling unwanted prosecutions. U.N. and donor officials have often glossed over the problem, eager to see the tribunal’s first two cases completed and protect their investments in Cambodia and the court.
