Just talked to Dutch.

This was Duch s place.

Human rights are for humans, she said emphatically when I asked her about Duch's case. He is a monster.

In half an hour Dutch would be suspicious.

Just a minute, I'll see if he's here. It's Dutch Schroeder.

There is no dispute that Duch violated the rights of thousands of Khmers.

Duch must have thought much the same thing about his victims when he ordered them to their deaths.

Until recently, Duch was the only one imprisoned, after being exposed in 1999.

But if the basic premise of these trials is to uphold human rights, then we are obliged to extend that same principle to Duch.

This might have been only a fleeting thought had I not seen Duch s family members, who attended the hearings.

This is, after all, the court s first test of fairness before the trials of Duch and four of Pol Pot s other henchmen begin next year.

The Committee welcomed his lecture and expressed its appreciation to Mr. Doetsch for his valuable contribution to the work of the Committee and its Scientific and Technical Subcommittee.

Outside the courtroom and in the community, most of the Khmers I talked to were, like my aunt, quick to categorize Duch as something other than human.

Sitting in the packed auditorium where snatches of Duch s face flash by on a movie screen, I m struck by what I see a face that belongs to someone.

Royal Dutch Shell s joint venture with the government produces half of the country s daily output of 2.5 million barrels.

British Petroleum has undertaken to disclose disaggregated payment information on its operations in Azerbaijan, and Royal Dutch Shell is doing the same in Nigeria.

Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known as Duch, presided over the deaths of more than 14,000 people at S 21, a former Phnom Penh high school turned into a torture center.

When I first visited Duch s house of horrors in 1990, I was 15 and full of wonder about the country where I was born but had never lived.

To say that Duch is a monster who does not deserve rights ignores the gray area between good and evil, between man and monster, where anything is possible.

Also at the 536th meeting, Karl Doetsch (Canada), Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee from its thirty eighth to fortieth sessions, gave a special presentation on the scientific and technical aspects of the work of the Committee and the way ahead.

The five red robed judges who preside over the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (the tribunal s official name) are the final arbiters of Duch s detention, but the question they are now considering belongs as much to the people of Cambodia as it does to the court.

In October 2004, violence in the region forced Obasanjo s government to negotiate with militia leader Asari Dokubu, after his men attacked a series of Royal Dutch Shell oil facilities and threatened to burn down the area.

This was a place where fingernails of countless victims were ripped out, where others were strung upside down and dunked in barrels of water, where many were brutalized with metal prongs and batons. This was a place of utter brokenness.

This might have been only a fleeting thought had I not seen Duch s family members, who attended the hearings. Hang Seav Heang, 28, described the defendant as a gentle man, a good father.

And no one would blame them for taking their time to consider their options. This is, after all, the court s first test of fairness before the trials of Duch and four of Pol Pot s other henchmen begin next year.