Killing Fields Survivor Says Khmer Rouge Trial 'Breaking Legal Ground'

The trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders is limited as a court of law for legal accountability but has great potential as a "court of public opinion," Theary Seng, a Cambodia-born U.S.-trained lawyer, said at a March 5 Newsmaker.

The trial, she said, is breaking legal ground by having victims of the Khmer Rouge participate as civil parties in a criminal proceeding. She was the first such party to recognized by the ECCC, and in 2008 testified against the most senior surviving Khmer Rouge leader, Nuon Chea, known as "Brother No. 2."

Seng lost her father and mother during the 1975-79 Killing Fields period. She said the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (formally the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, or ECCC) could be "a powferful catalyst for social accountability -- the constructive engagement of Killing Fields survivors and other Cambodians and their transformation into informed, empowered citizens."

As to the eventual legacy of the tribunal, Seng said, "it is still being written. Let's have another conversation five years from now, when the ECCC has closed shop."