Bellagio Workshop Examines Open Source Information as Evidence
War crimes investigations increasingly rely on open source information — videos, photos, and social media posts that are publicly accessible on the internet — as potential sources of evidence. When tribunal investigators, human rights activists, and students in human rights investigations labs like Berkeley’s handle such information, how should it be discovered, archived, and verified to ensure its admissibility and greatest possible weight in court?
With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law, brought investigators, scholars, technologists, and human rights activists to Bellagio, Italy, this week to discuss these urgent questions, identify overarching principles, and outline standard practices for handling open source information that could become evidence of an international crime. Additional funding for the workshop came from Open Society Foundations and Humanity United.
“This workshop was critical for launching an international conversation about the standards that need to be developed to facilitate the responsible collection, preservation, and presentation of open source information in order to maximize its weight in court.”
—Alexa Koenig, Human Rights Center
No international standard currently exists on how to collect court-admissible evidence of serious international crimes, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. And yet, that information can be integral to the pursuit of international justice.
“Investigators and activists are increasingly recognizing the powerful contribution that open source information can make to international cases, for example, with the International Criminal Court’s recent arrest warrant for Mahmoud Al-Werfalli of Libya, in which videos posted to Facebook played a prominent role,” said Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center and Director of its Human Rights Investigations Lab.
The Bellagio participants reviewed current legal cases built on open source information and the potential challenges to using such information in future investigations. They outlined and debated current practices — from searching and archiving to presenting evidence in court — and defined critical terminology relevant to the practice.
The participants agreed to begin a process for drafting guidelines on the collection and preservation of open source information in a manner which would allow its use in potential war crimes and crimes against humanity proceedings. The Human Rights Center will also issue a report with recommendations from the workshop.
“This workshop was critical for launching an international conversation about the standards that need to be developed to facilitate the responsible collection, preservation, and presentation of open source information in order to maximize its weight in court,” Koenig said.
