Knut Rosandhaug, a Norwegian who last served as director of property claims at the UN Mission in Kosovo, will take over from Michelle Lee as deputy director of administration at the Khmer Rouge tribunal June 1.
The deputy director at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia is the highest administrative position held by an international staffer in Phnom Penh.
“Michelle is going through the hand-over process now and will be providing him with a detailed briefing. She will be leaving the ECCC and Cambodia by the end of the month,” Peter Foster, the tribunal’s UN Public Affairs Officer, said by e-mail Wednesday.
Rosandhaug arrived in Phnom Penh on Sunday and met Tuesday with court staff as well as the head of the UN Development Program, Foster said.
Rosandhaug served in the Norwegian Armed Forces from 1985 to 1994, first as an investigator and then as a security specialist.
In 1996, he graduated from Norway’s University of Bergen with a degree in law and went on to work as a law professor and a legal officer under the Norwegian Defense Command at NATO.
He joined the UN in 2000, serving as a legal officer in Kosovo, then as a director at the UN Mission, where he oversaw the Kosovo Property Agency and the Kosovo Property Claims Commission. The claims commission is an independent judicial body, tasked with resolving property disputes from the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo. From its inception in 1999 until 2007, the commission settled nearly 27,000 property disputes, according to its Web site.