The Khmer Rouge tribunal plans to spend nearly $170 million in total to try up to eight defendants, a process it anticipates could take until March 2011, according to a budget estimate obtained Wednesday.
The Jan 30 budget estimate calls for $134.3 million for the international side of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and $35.4 million for the Cambodian side.
This represents a sizeable increase from the ECCC’s initial three-year, $56.3 million budget.
By far the largest increases come from higher staffing costs. The budget calls for more than twice as many judicial staff than initially anticipated, with a total of 168 posts on the international side of the court and 362 on the Cambodian.
ECCC Public Affairs Chief Helen Jarvis said she had not seen the budget estimate, which was circulated at a donor meeting in New York late last month. But she said additional costs—chiefly to meet translation and victim needs, expanded judicial work, and the court’s extended timetable—were anticipated.
She said the court could well conclude its work before 2011, but even if it does end up costing $170 million over five years, the ECCC is still less expensive than other international criminal courts.
“If the budget were to stretch out over five years, it’s still not much more than $30 million a year. I think that compares favorably with ICTY, which is now running at over $150 million a year, and ICTR, which is costing close to $140 million a year,” Jarvis said, referring to the tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda respectively.
France, Japan, the European Commission and the US on Wednesday said they were still in the process of evaluating the ECCC’s budget request.
“We recognize that a certain increase of the budget is justified simply because, for example, the victim unit, budget for outreach, technical equipment but most of all the interpreter/translation section was lacking funds,” Rafael Dochao Moreno, the EC’s charge d’affaires in Cambodia, wrote in an e-mail.
“We, however, are waiting for official clarification of these new figures and for detailed explanation of the—considerable—increase,” he wrote.
The budget estimate does not include an allowance for a UN special adviser to the court, a controversial idea that has been espoused by donors as a way to strengthen the court’s troubled international leadership.
The budget request is divided into international and Cambodian components, perpetuating a hybrid structure that many have called awkward.
Some donors had expressed reluctance to fund the Cambodian side of the court following last year’s allegations of corruption and two external reviews that revealed severe problems in hiring and court management practices.
As for whether the EC would continue to fund the Cambodian side of the court, Dochao-Moreno said: “Nothing is decided yet. Maybe other donors should fund now the Cambodian side. In any case, from all our experiences with the administration of the ECCC, we feel that only a unified Court would be able to stem the difficult tasks they are facing.”
Future funding, he added, would be contingent on the outcome of a special review now being prepared by the Project Board, which oversees UNDP-managed funds for the Cambodian side of the ECCC.
In October, the EC in Brussels requested that an independent review—which could be finished by the end of this month—be conducted to assess whether the tribunal had solved the problems with hiring, human resources management and alleged kickbacks that came to light last year.
“If this special review succeeds to satisfactorily clarify administrative shortcomings at the ECCC and bring in measures to prevent all questionable practices, then we will have a basis for further consideration,” Dochao-Moreno said.
Jarvis said that integrating the court’s split structure would be difficult at this late date and that no money for the Cambodian side of the tribunal would, in effect, mean no tribunal at all.
“A bird needs two wings to fly,” she said, adding: “There’s no way the court can exist if the Cambodian side is not supported.”
US funding also remains an issue.
US Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle declined to comment on the court’s proposed budget Wednesday, saying only: “The [US] State Department is currently reviewing all the facts about the tribunal and its operations, prior to making a decision regarding funding.”
US President George W Bush’s fiscal year 2009 budget request does not include money for the tribunal, Daigle said. However, funds can still be committed at a later date, he added.
The US Congress barred funding for the court, pending a ruling from the US secretary of state that the tribunal meets so-called “international standards.”
Some key Cambodia watchers in US Congress remain skeptical.
“Congress remains sober about Cambodia, generally, and the [ECCC], specifically. Those donors who have put funding on the table are griping how dollars were used and abused, and the administrative shortfall/concerns are well known,” a senior congressional aide wrote in an e-mail.
“Perhaps the best indication that the [ECCC] may ultimately succeed is if the Cambodian Government kicks in more than a token amount,” the aide said on condition of anonymity.
“A voluntary contribution as donor funds dry up would be a clear indication that Prime Minister Hun Sen and his government actually want the [ECCC] to succeed,” he added.
Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith said the Cambodian government, which has so far contributed $1.5 million in cash and an estimated $5.3 million of in-kind expenses to the court, would indeed come up with more funding.
“What I can say is the Cambodian government is determined to go ahead with the process. I don’t know yet how much will be the funding from the government side but there will be some funding,” Khieu Kanharith wrote in an e-mail Wednesday.
The budget request makes plain that the ECCC has not been able to work as fast as anticipated, largely because of delays in adopting the court’s internal rules. The budget estimate also says trials should start this June, but court sources say they are more likely to begin late in the year.
