The Right to Appeal a Judgment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

In early 2007, we submitted a report to the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia commenting on several aspects of its then-draft Internal Rules, including whether the ECCC's envisaged appeal system adhered to international standards. The Internal Rules were adopted in June 2007, and then revised in February 2008, September 2008 and March 2009. That report, produced under the auspices of the Amsterdam International Law Clinic, is the basis for this article, which examines ECCC appellate procedure from the perspective of comparative criminal procedure, international human rights law and the appellate regimes applied at international criminal tribunals. The ECCC are no exception to the traditional tension between fairness and efficiency that exists in criminal proceedings across all legal systems. An additional dimension for the Chambers to consider, however, is the extreme pressure on achieving expeditious justice: pressure that comes about as a result of both the Chambers' limited resources and the extreme age of the accused. This article critically assesses whether the unique circumstances of the ECCC disproportionately affect the law of appeals.