Optimist surely Khmer Rouge trials will start this year

Officials in Cambodia say they are optimistic the Khmer Rouge genocide trials will begin this year. It has been seven months since international judges were sworn-in, but more than 100 procedural rules are yet to be agreed upon.

The delay has lead to threats from some of the lawyers that they may quit in protest. In an interview with Radio Australia's Linda LoPresti on the Asia Pacific program, Dr Helen Jarvis, the chief of public affairs at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, said agreeing to the procedural rules is complicated. But, she said, other work on the cases are continuing.

"We are still hoping that this won't delay things very much longer, because certainly while some things are being held up awaiting the finalisation of the internal rules, a number of other things are going well ahead, as scheduled," Dr Jarvis said. "In particular, the work of the co-prosecutors.

"They have been working doing the preliminary investigations and preparing the cases, and they say they will be ready to hand those cases as soon as the rules are finalised."