In an effort aimed to preserve court records, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has started digitalizing recordings of proceedings from its trials.
The project, will see video recordings changed to high-resolution digital video files to ensure long-term preservation.

The tribunal, has since 1999 been producing video recordings of its trial proceedings. However, video tape is subject to deterioration over time, thus the need to transfer the video recordings to a new medium.

"This new development aims at enabling the Tribunal to permanently preserve the recordings which are expected to be 30,000 hours long by the end of the ICTR’s mandate,” an ICTR statement reads.

ICTR recently signed a contract with the renowned Front Porch Digital (FPD) to digitize the recordings.

FPD is a global leader in the migration and preservation of video tape to digital files, and is dedicated to developing technical solutions for the preservation, access and management of digital content.

The process will also enhance the accessibility of these video recordings to the users of the ICTR’s archives, while also ensuring their long-term viability.

The development comes at a time when the world is waiting to know which country will be home to the tribunal’s archives, once the court closes down at the end of next year.

The archives include, testimonies and tens of thousands of hours of video-taped court proceedings.

With the new arrangement, all digital audio and video files created as a result of this project will be reviewed and edited by the Audio-Visual staff.

As a result, edited versions of all recordings of the trial proceedings will be generated, which can then be made available to researchers, legal professionals, broadcasters and news agencies, the people of Rwanda, and the international community at large.

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