Interfaces.com Information

The forum is a product of partnership of several very large, very bureaucratic institutions: UC and ICC. The forum's design had to work very hard to satisfy the requirements of each of these organizations. And it had to work for the audience-the people who actually went there, read it, and participated in the discussion. The stated Forum's goals were: The discussions on the forum would help moot the international criminal law issues that were being pondered by the Office of the Prosecutor. The discussion was to allow groups and individuals with very varied opinions and political stake in the system to debate these issues openly and prior to doing so in front of the ICC judge. These discussions were to be public-anyone can read, anyone was free to post an idea, or a question, or give an opinion. These discussions would help everyone understand the complexities of issues before the court. And they would give some visibility to the decisions made by the Office of the Prosecutor. The benefits for ICC OTP were: Highlight the Issues and Problems Layout the Legal Landscape Give visibility to decisions Create a community of practice and give the members a voice And do all of this in some very discrete amount of time But who were the people who actually went and used our Forum? Well, while the Forum is free and open to everyone, it is a very select group of people who is interested in the issues we discuss and is able to discuss them at a level that we require. So we have a very select audience. It is the top thinkers in the field. And it is those who care deeply about those specific issues. And as all online forums, the audience is divided among the "lurkers"-those who only go and read the comments and opinions of others-and the active participants who write their opinions down and make them public. When we designed the system, what we wanted to do was make sure that we give as much support and explain the benefits to our audience as to move them from passive readers to active writers. So what are the benefits to ...