Dame Silvia Cartright Photo: RNZ/Dru Faulkner
Dame Silvia Cartwright returned to New Zealand earlier this year after five years presiding over the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia, along with four other international jurists. Four-thousand victims were parties to the legal action against senior leaders of the brutal Pol Pot regime, which was responsible for the deaths of nearly two million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. Each day of the tribunal, hundreds of Cambodians would attend court to hear testimony and watch proceedings.
Dame Silvia was the first woman to be Chief Judge of the District Court, first female High Court judge and in 2004, she became New Zealand's 18th Governor-General. She's currently on the United Nations Human Rights Council investigation into war crimes and human rights abuses in Sri Lanka.
She speaks with Kathryn Ryan about her extraordinary career.
