Important Interruption

Answer to the question, “What exactly is Sam doing in Cambodia?” appears below. I have explained it so many times that I am actually just pasting a section from the Virtual Tribunal’s brochure, with a few parentheses explanations included.

***The core idea of the Virtual Tribunal is to support and enhance the outreach and legacy efforts of the ECCC and the many civil society organizations involved in related transitional justice projects. [Note: ECCC stands for the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia—right now the main living leaders of the Khmer Rouge are on trial, 30 years later, for war crimes in a hybrid court, composed of Cambodian and UN officials]. Expanding conventional notions about the archival legacy of a court, the Virtual Tribunal uses cutting-edge information
technology to develop an interactive, multimedia educational resource for both national and international users. For the first time, the vast collection of information relating to the transitional justice process will be accessible to the public in a single interactive and user-friendly digital database. The Virtual Tribunal seeks to encourage greater understanding of the ECCC’s role in Cambodia, and increase access to the work of many civil society organizations working for justice.

The Virtual Tribunal will assist the ECCC in making trial-related materials such as decisions,
filings, trial transcripts and videos of the court proceedings, available to the public. The Virtual Tribunal will link these resources and combine them with expert commentary, educational
discussions, interviews and other multimedia resources. Working in partnership with the ECCC, the Virtual Tribunal Project encourages broad cooperation from Cambodian civil society organizations, schools and media entities in order to build the richest resource possible for Cambodian citizens, schools, and universities, as well as for international audiences, and posterity.****

Wheeewwie, what a mouthful. So in layman’s terms, my work involves communicating with all of these civil society organizations to let them know about the VT and discuss collaborations. This often comes in the form of materials that we can eventually upload to the site (still under construction), but also can involve other arrangements; for example, working with a school to instruct students in how to use the technology—itself an interesting example, since we then have to consider how best to relay the information in provinces without electricity, let alone internet access (exciting possibilities—more on that later). Once we begin receiving more materials, I’ll sort through them, to determine how best to categorize them for search purposes and relevance.