Long-Awaited Agreement to Tackle Corruption at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal Contains Major Flaws
NEW YORK—The United Nations risks jeopardizing future efforts to secure international justice unless it reconsiders a new anticorruption plan for the court in Cambodia trying senior members of the Khmer Rouge, said the Open Society Justice Initiative today.
The UN and the Cambodian government on Monday unveiled details of an agreement intended to address allegations of corrupt employment practices at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The plan appears to prohibit Cambodian staff from reporting possible wrongdoing to an independent body of the UN and instead forces them to file complaints with Cambodian ethics monitors who report directly to government officials. By requiring that recommendations for acting on complaints must be agreed to by a joint UN-Cambodian committee, the plan allows either side to block an inquiry. The agreement lacks details about the protections afforded to staff who alert authorities to instances of wrongdoing, and contains inadequate promises of confidentiality. In addition, it fails to offer provisions for dealing with outstanding allegations of corruption.
Taken together, these provisions do nothing to alter the de facto Cambodian government veto which has stymied genuine investigations of corruption to date.
"A system where each side handles the complaints of its own staff has already been tried and shown not to work," said James A. Goldston, executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative. "To be credible going forward, any mechanism must have the confidence of all staff that their complaints will be taken seriously, that whistleblowers will be protected, and that effective action will be taken to address valid complaints."
A confidential UN report in August 2008 detailed complaints that the court's staff was paying kickbacks to political overseers. The Cambodian government has made clear that it will not take action on the report. Fearing reprisals, Cambodians working for the court in the past have resisted reporting corruption to Cambodian officials.
Several changes are necessary for the current plan to work. Staff should not be restricted to whom they can report corruption and their identity should be kept confidential at their request. The agreement should contain provisions to protect whistleblowers and those provisions should be publicized. If agreement cannot be reached by the joint UN-Cambodia committee on how to proceed with a complaint, the issue should be submitted to an independent body for a binding decision. While preserving confidentiality, there should be public reporting regarding the nature of complaints and actions taken. Finally, complaints previously received should be processed under the new agreement.
Final negotiations between the UN and the Cambodian government regarding this agreement conclude on March 23, 2009. The Open Society Justice Initiative urges both sides to use this time to remedy the current plan's defects.
"We have growing concerns that the United Nations is unwilling or unable to address issues of corruption at the court," said Goldston. "Unless it reverses course, the United Nations risks lowering the bar for all future efforts to try international crimes."