Human Rights Investigations Lab

Human Rights Investigations Lab accepting applications for 2023

January 10, 2023
Call for Applications! The Human Rights Investigations Lab is accepting applications for the spring 2023 semester from January 10-January 22. If you are an undergraduate, please apply through the Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (URAP) application here...

Human Rights Investigations Lab

About

Building on longstanding work in the field, the Human Rights Center launched a Technology and Human Rights Program in 2015 to strengthen the use of emerging technologies in human rights investigations and prosecutions. We have since created the first university-based Human Rights Investigations Lab of its kind to conduct open source investigations for international organizations, news outlets, and courts. The lab collaborates with Amnesty International’s...

History

For more than 23 years, the Human Rights Center has been engaged in cutting-edge human rights investigations worldwide. Faculty Director Eric Stover organized exhumations of mass graves in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and elsewhere. At the request of the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Stover conducted a mass grave survey in Rwanda—the first of its kind—that later linked several accused to genocide. This evidence helped convict scores of accused, including Radovan Karadzic, Saddam Hussein, and Jean-Paul Akayesu.

In recent years, the Human...

Freeman op-ed on prosecuting Russian cyber attacks as war crimes

July 19, 2022
HRC's Tech, Law, and Policy Director Lindsay Freeman authored the op-ed "Russian Cyberattacks Need an International Criminal Court Response" in the Center for European Policy Analysis. "We should not wait for a catastrophic cyber event with severe human casualties before we act," Freeman wrote. "War crimes prosecutors should innovate and push for legal evolution to address the new character of war."...

Koenig and Freeman publish in Hastings Law Journal

July 13, 2022

HRC executive director Alexa Koenig and Tech, Law, and Policy director Lindsay Freeman co-authored "Cutting-Edge Evidence: Strengths and Weaknesses of New Digital Investigation Methods in Litigation," in the UC Hastings Law Journal. The piece delves into the risks present with the use of OSINT investigation methods in litigation, with an eye towards challenging the investigator, the methods, the evidence, the analytical findings, the testimony...

Seven Essential Questions for Ethical War Crimes Documentation

June 1, 2022

Published both on HRC's Blog and on Responsibledata.io, this piece co-authored by HRC's Alexa Koenig, Videre est Credere's Jacqueline Geis, and JustPeace Labs' Jennifer Easterday presents urgent considerations for those currently collecting, investigating & analyzing open source information in Ukraine & beyond...

HRC's Alexa Koenig speaks about OSINT in war crimes investigations on 60 Minutes

May 16, 2022

Alexa Koenig in a 60 Minutes interview with Scott Pelley

HRC's Alexa Koenig spoke with Scott Pelley on the May 15th episode of 60 Minutes about OSINT investigations into potential war...