The UN-backed court set up in Cambodia to try former Khmer Rouge leaders is seeking donors' approval for a budget of more than 93 million dollars over the next two years, a court statement said Friday. The statement said a budget for 2010 and 2011 had been presented to UN and donor country officials during meetings in New York this week.
"Based on the anticipated needs of the court for the coming two years, the (tribunal) is requesting approval of the proposed budget in the amount of 46.0 million dollars for 2010 and 47.3 million dollars for 2011," it said. Tribunal spokesman Lars Olsen said the court's 2009 budget was 36.4 million dollars.
The statement said costs had risen because the court's pre-trial chamber would be functioning full-time, while its supreme court may also go full-time from the middle of next year. Defence costs for legal representation related to potential additional cases also raised budget estimates, it said.
Originally budgeted at 56.3 million dollars over three years, the tribunal opened in 2006 after nearly a decade of wrangling between the UN and Cambodia but significantly raised its cost estimates last year to 170 million dollars. Donors have hesitated to fund the Cambodian side of the court in the past after claims of political interference and a scandal in which local staff were allegedly forced to pay kickbacks for their jobs.
The UN and Cambodia in August agreed on a deal to tackle graft but the New York-based Open Justice Society Initiative last month said "no visible progress" had been made. "It appears as if the latest agreement between the UN and the government of Cambodia is still an empty vessel," the report said, blaming a "lack of resolve on the part of key stakeholders".
Final arguments were heard last week in the long-awaited trial of Duch, the former chief of the Khmer Rouge regime's main torture centre, where up to 15,000 people were killed. Pol Pot's 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime killed up to two million people through starvation, overwork, torture and execution as it attempted to forge a communist utopia by emptying cities and turning the countryside into a vast labour camp. The tribunal also plans to try four former regime leaders on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity some time in 2011.
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