Public lecture ‘Digital Media, Reconciliation & the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’

“What we realized is that the people of the tribunal are going to disperse to the four corners of the globe, and with them would go all of their personal experiences, knowledge, wisdom, insight,” she says. “They alone know intimately what about the structure of that tribunal was working. We thought, wouldn’t it be amazing if some of their stories could be captured?”

- Batya Friedman quoted in an article of KOMO news from January 2009. For more and recent information, please visit the project’s website.

Justice, if carried out in relative isolation from those harmed, is in part justice unrealized.  Framed thus, media has a critical role to play in ensuring the impact and communication of justice systems, both domestic and international – not just on those accused of wrongdoing, but on those who have experienced harms.  Digital media and infrastructure (such as the Internet, mobile phones, and crowdsourcing technology) with their potential for widespread public access and opportunities for public participation provide even greater possibilities for engagement across multiple stakeholders in the justice process.  Moreover media attention to the results of poor planning and oversight can help ensure more efficient and timely administration of justice.  We are investigating this potential in the context of the Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal, a collection of 49 in-depth video-interviews with personnel from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). 

The Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal project is historic in at least two ways. First the collection: Comprised of roughly 60-70 hours of high-definition digital video, the interviews collected in 2008 provide access to the reflections and insights from tribunal personnel; the collection is the first ever of its kind. Diverging from traditional oral history and consistent with a multi-lifespan information framing, tribunal personnel speak toward the future more than to explicate the past. The interviews engage a range of issues including challenges for prosecuting sexual violence crimes; location of the tribunal outside of Rwanda; Rwandan involvement in the tribunal; the need to support domestic justice capacity building; the need for greater communication and outreach about tribunal activities within Rwanda and internationally; the need for better management techniques and for earlier businesslike planning and oversight of how the goals are being implemented; and traumatic stress experienced by tribunal personnel.

Second the information design: Unique in its architecture and implementation, the system design provides widespread public access to (including reuse of) the interview materials and opportunities to contribute to curating the collection, while at the same time securing the collection against revisionist histories. Innovative technical mechanisms support global public participation in identifying keywords for video segments (to be used in the future for indexing the collection and supporting search); and identifying key moments in the interviews to be showcased on the project website (in effect, shaping the online presentation of the collection). Taken together, the interview content and information system design explore new territory in providing opportunities for multiple stakeholders to engage, understand, and respond to the justice process.

In this talk, I will report on the project’s history and goals; the multi-lifespan information system design theory that underlies the project; the process of collecting the video interviews with tribunal personnel in Arusha, Tanzania and in Rwanda; some key insights from the collection; the information system design; our early dissemination activities in Rwanda; and our current ideas for next steps, particularly those to support reconciliation and justice capacity building in Rwanda and beyond.

You can visit the Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal project here:
tribunalvoices.org

Batya Friedman
is a professor in the Information School, adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science, and adjunct professor in the Department of Human-Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington where she directs the Value Sensitive Design Research Lab.  Friedman pioneered Value Sensitive Design (VSD), an approach to account for human values in the design of information systems.  First developed in human-computer interaction, VSD has since been used in information management, human-robotic interaction, computer security, civil engineering, and land use and transportation.  Her work has focused on the values of privacy in public, trust, freedom from bias, moral agency, environmental sustainability, safety, calmness, freedom of expression, and human dignity; and engaged such technologies as web browsers, urban simulation, robotics, open source tools, mobile computing, implantable medical devices, computer security, and ubiquitous computing.  She is currently working on methods for envisioning and on multi-lifespan information system design – new ideas for leveraging information systems to shape our future.  Voices from the Rwanda Tribunal is an early project in this multi-lifespan information system design effort.  Professor Friedman received both her B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. 

The lecture will be held at:

the ‘Mandela zaal’ (Mandela room)
T.M.C. Asser Instituut
R.J. Schimmelpennincklaan 20-22
2517 JN Den Haag
http://www.asser.nl/

Grotere kaart weergeven

Participation is free of charge. However, registration is necessary. To register please send an e-mail to , subject line “SCL Lecture” mentioning full name and organisational
affiliation.