Youth Initiative Uses Virtual World to Support International Criminal Court

An organization called the Global Kids' Digital Media Initiative launched the International Justice Center last week in support of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

The official ceremony featured ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Lloyd Axworthy (former foreign affairs minister of Canada), Louise Arbour (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Supreme Court of Canada Justice), Allan Rock (former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations), and Kenneth Roth (Executive Director, Human Rights Watch).

The Center will use web technologies and ensure a presence in the virtual reality world of Second Life to mobilize young people around human rights issues.

"We at Global Kids have some tentative plans for the Center in the near future including the following:

• Live Video from the ICC: As the first major trial at the ICC moves forward, we have the potential to host at the Center live viewings of trials and hearings over the next months. These might be supplemented by commentators and experts explaining why a particular procedure or hearing is important.
• Online Chats with People in Countries of Concern to the ICC: We are developing a tool that connects SMS text messaging to Second Life that can enable people in low-bandwidth environments to connect with people in virtual worlds via text chat. Some possibilities include holding online discussions with people in Uganda and the Congo to talk about the role of the ICC in their countries.
• Trainings of Lawyers, Journalists, Activists: The Center could host workshops, lectures and classes on ICC-related subject matter, which would be conducted by experts from legal associations, non-profits and academia. This might enable activists, journalists, lawyers and others to get in-depth knowledge of what is going on at the ICC without having to leave their offices."