A recent debate on International Criminal Justice and Social Media, at the Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, with a panel including people involved in journalism, legal professions and academia, examined how social media is, and should be, used. The panel discussed how social media could be used as a means of extending formal instruments of international criminal justice systems and how it encourages increased involvement in legal issues.
Social media is shifting the concept of news and media. Today there is a continuous blending of news media through social media sites. Many recent events, such as the Kony 2012 campaign and the Arab Spring, have demonstrated how social media can influence mass movements. These movements through social media have been attributed to the interest and involvement of younger generations.
A couple of the panellists, Stephanie Barbour, of Amnesty International’s Centre for International Justice, and Dr. Bibi van Ginkel, a senior research fellow at Clingendael and a fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, acknowledged that youth maybe perceived as the starting point for movements on social media. Younger people, moreover, are more inclined to become involved in social media, as they are the more frequent users of these tools.