LEGAL TRAINING

1995-present

The DC-Cam’s Legal Training Project aims at educating a focused group of influential Cambodians about transitional justice and human rights law so that they will be able to put those ideas into practice as teachers, writers, lawyers, activists, and policymakers.

The DC-Cam’s Legal Training Project was first implemented in 1995 and 1996 in collaboration with Yale’s Cambodian Genocide Program and the Schell Centre for International Human Rights. Both years, two successful courses on international law were provided to law students by foreign guest lecturers.

 In 2003, the DC-Cam received some funding to organise another Legal Training Project in the following year. Hence, during the summer 2004, a six weeks legal training course on international humanitarian and criminal law was attended by 30 participants at the DC-Cam’s office in Phnom Penh (see 2004 Legal Training).

The DC-Cam received generous support to organise further legal training courses during the year 2005 from the Swedish and Dutch governments, as well as the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, through USAID. The 2005 Legal Training Project focused on a subject matter highly relevant to the upcoming Khmer Rouge tribunal’s trials, namely criminal defense. It involved three two-week courses at the DC-Cam’s office for selected Cambodian professionals. Lectures and workshops were provided and facilitated by international and Cambodian guest lecturers who have been practicing as defense counsel before domestic courts and/or international/mixed criminal courts. In addition, the DC-Cam’s legal training team prepared a Training Manual, which was handed over to the trainees (see 2005 Legal Training).

Click on Tribunal Response Team for a description of DC-Cam’s activities to support the tribunal process. (see 2006 Investigative Police training)

DC-Cam Legal Training, Fall 2010: The Duch Case and International Criminal Law

▪ Announcement of Legal Training in 2010