Group launches Cambodia tribunal

CHICAGO, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- An Illinois-based consortium of academics, philanthropists and non-profits is sponsoring a Web site to provide coverage to the Cambodia war crimes tribunal.

The new Web site, called the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor, is sponsored by the Northwestern University School of Law's Center for International Human Rights, joined by co-sponsors Documentation Center of Cambodia and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. The prime sponsor of the site is the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation.

Officials say the new site is an effort to provide ongoing coverage and commentary on the upcoming trials of senior officials of the Khmer Rouge regime during the Cambodia war crimes tribunal, called the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia near Phnom Penh.

Offering news updates, video excerpts and commentaries by experts, the site will oversee the proceedings in a joint partnership with the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia.

"Cambodia has had enough justice administered behind closed doors. It is essential that the ECCC provide some answers ... about who is accountable and why," writes Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, in a statement. "The tribunal must leave people with a judgment, something concrete they can take away and debate, and something they feel was done in fairness to all."