Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia Research Articles

Finetuning Pretrained Model with Embedding of Domain and Language Information for ASR of Very Low-Resource Settings

This study investigates the effective incorporation of meta-information such as domain and language in finetuning a pretrained model based on self-supervised learning (SSL) for automatic speech recognition (ASR) in very low-resource settings. SSL pretrained models have been shown to achieve comparable or even better performance to conventional end-to-end systems even when we finetune them with a small dataset. However, it still requires the specific target dataset with a considerable amount of labeled data, like 10 h, to achieve satisfactory performance. Thus, we propose to exploit heterogeneous datasets which are partially matched either in language or domain and apply multi-task learning (MTL) or adversarial learning (ADV) using the meta-information. The finetuning comprises (1) domain adaptation, which uses in-domain multi-lingual datasets, and (2) language adaptation, which uses datasets of the same language but different domains. The auxiliary task is domain identification for language adaptation and language identification for domain adaptation. We then embed the output of the auxiliary task into the encoder output of the ASR task. The target dataset is the Khmer corpus of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in various sizes from one hour to 10 h. The experimental evaluations demonstrate that fusing the meta-information in MTL or ADV significantly improves ASR accuracy. Moreover, a two-step adaptation method which first conducts domain adaptation and then language adaptation is the most effective. We also show that the target labeled dataset of only 5 h gives an almost saturated performance.

Case 002/02 Against Khieu Samphan (E.C.C.C. Sup. Ct. Chamber)

On September 22, 2022, the Supreme Court Chamber (SCC) of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) pronounced its judgment against Khieu Samphan, a key figure in the Khmer Rouge regime that ruled the country in the late 1970s. The appellate SCC upheld the Trial Chamber's conviction of Khieu Samphan for war crimes and genocide, as well as all but two convictions against him for crimes against humanity. The SCC also found him responsible for additional crimes and affirmed his life sentence. On December 23, 2022, the court published the full written judgment, bringing to a close Case 002/02, the third and final trial at the ECCC.

Outsourcing Outreach: ‘Counter-translation’ of Outreach Activities at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

This article examines the outreach activities of the ongoing trials in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC was designed to hold the leaders of Cambodia's notoriously violent Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979) accountable. Outreach programmes have now become part of transitional justice initiatives as means to anchor their work in local and national consciousness in target countries. Using ethnographic data gathered in 2019–2020, this article explores how outreach activities have changed over time as they have become subject to new influences. I focus in particular on how some local actors have begun appropriating them in ways that represent a ‘counter-translation’ of the intentions originally propagated by the architects of the ECCC.

Scales of Justice: “International Standards” and “Local Ownership” at a Hybrid Tribunal

AbstractThis paper argues that a politics of scale plays a fundamental but uninterrogated role in internationalised criminal justice processes such as hybrid tribunals. Scale discourses—producing specific notions of “the international” and “the local”—are so naturalised in these endeavours that their regressive effects remain unacknowledged. Following Annelise Riles’ ground‐breaking analysis of the politics of scale in colonial law, and feminist critiques of scale discourse in accounts of globalisation and conflict, we think critically about “the international” and “the local” in a postcolonial and post‐conflict justice context. Using the case of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), we specifically examine the operation and effects of discourses of “international standards” and “local ownership”. We argue that denaturalising scale in international criminal justice would serve a wider project to decolonise international law and address the specific forms of disenfranchisement currently enacted by dominant “scales of justice”.

TriECCC: Trilingual Corpus of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for Speech Recognition and Translation Studies

This paper presents an extended work on the trilingual spoken language translation corpus of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), namely TriECCC. TriECCC is a simultaneously spoken language translation corpus with parallel resources of speech and text in three languages: Khmer, English, and French. This corpus has approximately [Formula: see text] thousand utterances, approximately [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], and [Formula: see text] h in length of speech, and [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] million words in text, in Khmer, English, and French, respectively. We first report the baseline results of machine translation (MT), and speech translation (ST) systems, which show reasonable performance. We then investigate the use of the ROVER method to combine multiple MT outputs and fine-tune the pre-trained English–French MT models to enhance the Khmer MT systems. Experimental results show that the ROVER is effective for combining English-to-Khmer and French-to-Khmer systems. Fine-tuning from both single and multiple parents shows the effective improvement on the BLEU scores for Khmer-to-English/French and English/French-to-Khmer MT systems.

The unfortunate omission of entangled resistance in the ‘local turn’ in peace-building: the case of ‘forced marriage’ in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

ABSTRACT The concept of resistance within the peace-building literature has received considerable attention as well as becoming central to the critique of liberal interventions. Scholars approach to resistance within the ‘local turn’ literature has resulted in more elaborate studies; even so, local agency is typically narrowed down and conceptualised as a response to what is considered as problematic aspects of peace-building interventions. By analysing the resistance to/against the inclusion of ‘forced marriage’ as a crime against humanity in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), this paper suggests that the study of resistance within the local turn must be broadened. The case study reveals how different forms of resistance are performative of and intertwined with other forms of resistance as well as how resistance evokes local power reactions. In addition to this, the paper also demonstrates that external international interveners sometimes mobilise local resistance, which results in the formation of strong but uneasy alliances against local political elites. All in all, the resistance is far more complex than most local turn literature suggests.

Senior Leaders and Those Most Responsible at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

This essay explores the way in which the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has interpreted its personal jurisdiction, particularly the language in its constitutive documents referring to senior leaders and those most responsible. It also compares the approach adopted by the ECCC to the approach ultimately adopted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), which has very similar language in its constitutive documents.

The Role of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia in trying Khmer Rouge Human Rights Offender in Cambodia

<p><em>Conflict often occurs when two or more interests are in contradiction and no one wants to concede. We know a variety of conflicts today, from the conflict preexisting since a long time ago such as intertribal conflict to more modern conflict such as a state’s tapping over another. The way of resolving conflict is also varying according to the types of conflict, big conflict such as interstate conflict or the one attracting the world’s attention, using more complex resolution and usually using the third party. Therefore, a special organization will be founded to solve a conflict. One of organizations created to solve a conflict is the Extraordinary Chambers in The Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) aiming to try the war criminals during Khmer Rouge humanity crime incidence in 1975-1979. Humanity crime occurring in Cambodia is one of largest humanity tragedies in modern era post 2<sup>nd</sup> World War. This ECCC was founded because at that time Cambodia’s National Justice Institution could not try the perpetrator of humanity crime. Cambodian government along with UN then agreed to found a justice institution specifically aiming to deal with and to resolve Khmer Rouge case.</em></p>

The Projectification of Reparation

AbstractThere has been increasing use of project-based organization in various areas of human rights practice, including within truth and justice-seeking in the wake of mass atrocities. This article traces the development and deployment of project-based approaches to judicial reparation at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), an internationalized (hybrid) criminal tribunal. Drawing on the authors’ many years of close observation in and around the ECCC, it describes and explains how a project-based approach responded to the challenge of ‘moral and collective’ reparation for victims of mass crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979). The article critically examines how development actors nominated, designed and ‘delivered’ so-called ‘reparation projects’. Twenty-four projects were ultimately recognized by the ECCC; key details of these are succinctly tabulated here for the benefit of readers. The article discusses the effects of the projectification of ECCC reparation, including new practices, changed relationships and changed meanings of reparation. It finds that in Cambodia—a state that has experienced decades of international development assistance resulting in the entrenchment of project forms across different fields—the mobilization of new actors and resources has expanded the possibilities for ECCC reparation and provided some benefits to those victims involved. However, a project-based approach also reshaped decision-making and accountability structures underpinning reparation work. The article argues that using ‘projectification’ as an analytical lens expands our capacity to understand how, and with what consequences, global notions of reparation and justice are enacted in different contexts through the coordination and implementation of projects.

Reparation Modalities at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

Abstract In the last decade, the ECCC has ordered reparations for victims of the Khmer Rouge’s mass atrocities committed in Cambodia during the 1970s. Various scholars have examined those reparations ordered by the ECCC. Yet, this is the first academic piece to assess the ECCC’s reparation modalities under the UN Reparation Principles, which contain key standards on reparations for victims of atrocities. Overall, the ECCC has ordered important rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition measures to redress victims’ harm. This is a meaningful current development with regard to reparations for victims of atrocities. However, the ECCC’s reparation law and practice exhibits some important deficits under the UN Reparation Principles. At the ECCC, restitution and compensation are excluded and the range of guarantees of non-repetition has been limited. Nonetheless, these deficits must be considered within the ECCC’s mandate as an internationalised criminal court.

An educational legacy: Exploring the links between education and resilience at the ECCC

AbstractAbout half a million Cambodians have attended hearings or outreach activities about the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) since public hearings began in 2009. Countless more have watched the trials unfold on television, and increasingly on social media. To date, the majority of conversations around the legacy of the ECCC have come from international scholars focusing on the legal impact the trials may have. This article instead presents the often-missing views of Cambodian youth about the Tribunal. It also, more broadly, explores the ECCC’s impact on education and young people’s understanding of history. Based on research carried out with university students, this article argues that the contribution of the ECCC to education has often been overlooked and is in fact one of its most significant legacies. In Cambodia, government and non-government organizations, as well as academic institutions, have the unique opportunity to incorporate testimony, footage, and documents from the ECCC into their programmes, greatly adding to the existing repertoire of Khmer-language resources dealing with the past. The result is a more well-rounded programme of transitional justice and reconciliation than the court alone could have provided, and certainly a higher level of external resilience than would have occurred had the court been located outside of Cambodia.

Case 004/2 Involving AO An: Considerations on Appeals Against Closing Orders (Extraordinary Chambers Cts. Cambodia)

On December 19, 2019, the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) rendered its “Considerations on Appeals Against Closing Orders” in Case 004/2 Involving Ao An. The 266-page ruling exemplified, and brought to a head, the longstanding conflict within the ECCC between the national and international co-prosecutors and between the national and international judges on the parameters of personal jurisdiction and the interpretation of relevant provisions of the ECCC's constitutional documents. The fate of the ECCC now hangs in the balance.

The ECCC’s Approach to Evidence and Proof

Abstract The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has made normative decisions as to the probative value of different categories of evidence and the manner in which the evidentiary record should be assessed. Defying expectations that the ECCC’s inquisitorial model would render it quite unique in relation to matters of evidence and proof, this article argues that many of the key epistemological debates witnessed before other international criminal tribunals have also seeped into the practice of the ECCC. Indeed, an analysis of its practice shows that there are several commonalities in approach between the ECCC and the principal contemporary international criminal tribunals on such key issues as whether the evaluation of evidence should be carried out in a piecemeal or a holistic manner, and the weight to be given to hearsay and other categories of evidence. Despite an enormously challenging fact-finding environment and inconsistencies in practice, the ECCC has developed an admirably thorough approach to the evaluation of evidence.

ECCC Appeals

Abstract The appellate stage of the proceedings before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has received more limited attention than its pre-trial and trial process. In order to partially remedy this gap, this article highlights the unique features of the ECCC appellate system and how the Supreme Court Chamber (SCC) has given them effect in practice. Firstly, I consider the SCC’s restricted jurisdiction over immediate appeals and failed attempts by its judges to extend such appeals to jurisdictional questions. Secondly, I discuss the scope and powers of appellate review by the SCC in respect of alleged errors of law and fact, focusing on its innovative formulation of the standard of review of factual errors. This qualified deference standard has proven to be of broader import as it has informed the International Criminal Court Appeals Chamber's majority approach in the Bemba case. Thirdly, I focus on the SCC’s intervention in one area, namely the ECCC’s personal jurisdiction, and its reading of the ‘most responsible’ parameter as a non-jurisdictional and judicially unreviewable criterion. Taking cues from these landmark decisions, I appraise the SCC’s role in delivering fair and expeditious justice and securing the viability of the ECCC’s mission while acknowledging the more contentious aspects of its track record without which no account of its emerging legacy would be complete or balanced.

The Function and Dysfunction of the Pre-Trial Chamber at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Abstract This article examines claims that the Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has been rendered dysfunctional in Cases 003 and 004, based on a qualitative analysis of PTC jurisprudence. It finds that the PTC has displayed signs of an inability to carry out both its core function and extended mandate in Cases 003 and 004, suggesting that the PTC is — at least on occasion — dysfunctional. Next, it argues that these signs of PTC dysfunction are not due to political interference at the ECCC alone but are also a result of structural weaknesses embedded in the PTC’s design during negotiations. These structural weaknesses have rendered the PTC unable to avoid dysfunction. Ultimately, this article explores the implications of PTC dysfunction for the ECCC and its proceedings and for the establishment of future tribunals under circumstances that are similarly politically challenging.

The Right to an Effective Defence During ECCC Investigations

Abstract The present article seeks to explore and discuss to what extent the position of the defence in the course of investigations before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is in conformity with fair trial norms and sufficiently robust to ensure high-quality fact-finding. After recalling the general features and structure of the ECCC proceedings at the pre-trial stage, the authors critically assess how the inquisitorial imprint given to the ECCC investigation phase has ultimately affected the rights of the suspects and accused to an effective defence.

‘Worth the Effort’?

Abstract Every international and hybrid war crimes court has attracted a measure of controversy, but none more than the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). While myriad aspects of the ECCC’s record are crucial to its legacy, this article explores one question of overarching importance: whether its performance has justified a key risk the UN assumed when it agreed to support the court — that case selection would be improperly influenced by the Cambodian government. More particularly, it assesses the ECCC’s performance in light of two questions: How well have safeguards against political interference worked? Are survivors of Khmer Rouge atrocities and other Cambodian citizens satisfied with ECCC justice? Along with their intrinsic importance, these benchmarks for assessment derive from the primacy of both considerations in deliberations leading to the Court’s creation.

Targeted Groups, Rape and Dolus Eventualis

Abstract This article discusses a number of substantive law developments at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) after the issuance of the trial judgment in Case 002/02 against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. It focuses on three themes emblematic of the Khmer Rouge era’s unique set of facts: the identification of targeted groups, male victims of rape in the context of forced marriage and the mens rea standard of indirect intent or dolus eventualis. These themes are distilled from the most pertinent jurisprudential developments regarding a number of specific crimes and a mode of liability: persecution on political grounds, genocide, other inhumane acts through conduct characterized as rape in the context of forced marriage, extermination and joint criminal enterprise. This article posits that these substantive law developments have an important place in international criminal law’s corpus as a rare stepping stone between the post-World War II trials and the modern-day international criminal courts and tribunals.

The Role of the Arts in Cambodia’s Transitional Justice Process

Within the study and practice of transitional justice, the roles played by the arts in addressing past human rights violations have become increasingly well accepted. This article examines the role of the arts in Cambodia’s transitional justice process, from the initial coupling of attempts to revive the arts with the pursuit of human rights in the early 1980s to the reparations orders provided by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). It identifies five main contributions the arts may make to transitional justice processes—evidence, complementary justice, outreach, activism, and critique—and demonstrates not only that various art forms have assumed each of these roles in Cambodia but also that this case extends the place of the arts in transitional justice. In particular, by highlighting the role played by local activists in seeking to revive the arts in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge period, this article reveals the significance of arts initiatives, instigated in the absence of a formal justice process, for formal processes once they eventually emerge. In doing so, it argues that without the arts initiatives and activism that preceded it, the formal inclusion of the arts in the ECCC process would not have been possible.

Trial Chamber Case 002/02 Against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan (Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia)

On November 16, 2018, the Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) rendered the judgment in Case 002/02 against Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan. The full written version of the judgment was notified in Khmer, English, and French on March 28, 2019. The Chamber found Nuon and Khieu guilty of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and genocide of the Vietnamese ethnic, national, and racial group. The Chamber additionally convicted Nuon of genocide of the Cham ethnic and religious group under the doctrine of superior responsibility. Both Nuon and Khieu were sentenced to life imprisonment.