ECCC to meet again in March for internal rules

The judges from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) will again meet in March to hammer out its internal rules, as the second round of meeting failed to draw the conclusion on Friday.

The nine-member committee started talks two weeks ago to establish the rules which are expected to govern everything from trial chamber design to victims' rights.

In the first round of their talks in November 2006, the ECCC also failed to adopt internal rules.

Without the internal rules in place, the court will not be able to conduct any investigation and trial.

After six years of talks, the U.N. and Cambodia agreed in 2003 to set up the ECCC to jointly hold trial of the former Democratic Kampuchea (DK) leaders. Formal trial is expected to begin in mid- 2007 and the entire process will take three years at the cost of 56.3 million U.S. dollars.

The DK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979.

Source: Xinhua