Human Rights Investigations Lab

We're hiring! HRC Investigations Lab Administrative Coordinator

June 8, 2021

UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center is hiring an Administrative Coordinator for its pioneering HRC Investigations Lab.

The HRC Investigations Lab trains and engages students to conduct open source investigations, in partnership with legal, advocacy, and media organizations, in order to document facts and contribute to accountability. Based at the UC...

The New Forensics: Using Open Source Information to Investigate Grave Crimes

Alexa Koenig
2018

The New Forensics: Using Open Source Information to Investigate Grave Crimes highlights discussion, conclusions, and recommendations from an historic workshop on evidence collection and legal accountability that the Human Rights Center hosted at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy last fall. The workshop marked the first international effort to explore how to harness the probative power and potential of open source investigations for legal accountability.

Digital Evidence: Investigatory Protocols

Tommy Umberg
Cherrie Warden
2013

The purpose of this paper is to assist the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) at the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) by discussing cyberinvestigation protocols that enable strategic mobilization and acquisition of digital evidence. This paper discusses cyberinvestigation protocols relevant to three types of digital evidence: data that is on a device; data that is not on a device or is accessible online; and data that is held privately by a service provider. The first section addresses how an investigator should acquire and authenticate physical devices that may have evidentiary value....

Digital Evidence and the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act

Aida Ashouri
Caleb Bowers
2013

This paper provides background on the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act (ASPA or Act) and examines the circumstances surrounding the passage of the Act, its key provisions and their exceptions, and how the Act affects investigations by the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court). International criminal prosecutions increasingly rely on cyberinvestigations to uncover digital evidence that can be subsequently admitted in court proceedings. ASPA restricts U.S. cooperation with the ICC and its investigations within the United States. As the majority of emails and social media...

An Overview of the Use of Digital Evidence in International Criminal Courts

Aida Ashouri
Caleb Bowers
Cherrie Warden
2013

As digital evidence becomes more prevalent, it poses challenges to the International Criminal Court. This paper reviews some of the leading international criminal cases involving digital evidence, with a particular focus on the ICC, and identifies four types of evidentiary considerations specific to digital evidence: (1) authentication; (2) hearsay; (3) provenance (chain of custody); and (4) preservation of evidence. Using these four considerations, this paper aims to contribute to discussion on how best to respond to the challenges of digital evidence. The paper concludes with several...

Digital Verification Corps Student Summit report

Andrea Lampros
Alexa Koenig
Haley Willis
2017

The Human Rights Center and Amnesty International hosted the first Digital Verification Corps student summit in June 2017. Participants included students from Essex, Toronto, Pretoria, Cambridge, and Berkeley as well as leading open source experts from around the world. We evaluated the first year of university-based open source labs, conducted training, discussed next steps, and built community.