The Phnom Penh Post

Joseph Mellot, of the State Department's Office of War Crimes Issues, has been in Cambodia since Friday conducting a review of the ECCC.

"He is here as part of our ongoing assessment of the court's progress," U.S. Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle wrote by email Wednesday. Mellot is a special adviser to the U.S. ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues.

It remains unclear whether the U.S. will consider funding the tribunal and Daigle wrote he could not "speculate on when, or even if, a decision to fund the ECCC might be made."

"If we were to consider funding the ECCC," Daigle wrote, "we must be convinced that it is capable of meeting international standards of justice."

He said Mellot's findings would be used in such funding deliberations, if they were to occur.

The tribunal plans to finalize a new budget by the end of this month, court spokeswoman Helen Jarvis has said.