International Posts: The Cambodia Tribunal's Richard Rogers in Phnom Penh

Richard Rogers, chief of the defense section for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal
Peter Harris

Claire Duffett
Special to Law.com
March 11, 2009

On March 31, after 30 years of impunity, senior members of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime will face their first trial before a United Nations-backed tribunal in Cambodia. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), staffed by a mix of international and Cambodian judges, was set up to try the former communist regime's leaders for their alleged crimes during the late 1970s, when forced labor, starvation and the extermination of intellectuals, perceived traitors and anyone deemed useless killed up to one-quarter of Cambodia’s 9 million citizens.

Coordinating the defense team for the ECCC is a British-born lawyer who began his legal career in a far more mundane setting. Daunted by the thought of a dull career defending petty criminals as a barrister in London, Richard Rogers quit his job in the mid-1990s and left for San Francisco, where he became a patent litigator at Coudert Brothers. But his wanderlust and intellectual curiosity drove him to seek out ever more exotic legal landscapes, leading to stints working on international war crimes tribunals in The Hague and several Third World countries.

Rogers now lives and works in Cambodia, where he's helping coordinate legal efforts to bring closure to one of the darkest periods of the country's history. Law.com met with Rogers at his office in Phnom Penh to discuss his unique career and the court's many hurdles.