Australian barrister at law, mediator and specialist negotiator Mark Plunkett who was appointed ...

Australian barrister at law, mediator and specialist negotiator Mark Plunkett who was appointed the United Nations' first Special Prosecutor in 1993, attached to the Human Rights Component of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Having spent part of the previous year working for UNTAC as a Human Rights officer, Plunkett was already well aware of the type of abuses he and his staff would investigate. The component's initial staffing allocation of ten proved woefully inadequate, while the expanded unit, consisting of one representative in each province and a small headquarters group based in Phnom Penh proved to be almost as unworkable. With a mandate to investigate war crimes, acts of genocide and human rights abuses, Plunkett encountered severe political opposition from all factions in his attempts to bring the first two human rights abuse cases before the Cambodian courts, which were rejected by Phnom Penh's People's Municipal Tribunal of Justice.