Human Rights Documentation Solutions
Phase I Report
The Public International Law and Policy Group (PILPG), in partnership with The Engine Room and HURIDOCS, has published a wide-ranging needs assessment report for human rights documenters, transitional justice actors, and tool developers. The report aims to benefit those promoting accountability for perpetrators of atrocities by ensuring that civil society actors engaged in documentation-gathering processes have access to sustainable, tailored, and secure technological solutions. The report is the culmination of Phase I of the Human Rights Documentation Solutions project. During Phase II, PILPG and The Engine Room will collaborate with a tool developer to build a technological solution using the research gathered in the report.
Click HERE for the Phase I Needs Assessment Report.
Click HERE for Tech Tools for Human Rights Documentation: A Snapshot of the Landscape.
Report Launch
Roundtable Discussant Biographies
Moderator: Bethany Houghton, PILPG
Bethany Houghton is a lecturer and researcher at the Vrije (Free) Universiteit Amsterdam. She previously studied law at the University of Durham in the UK and pursued post-graduate law studies in Transnational Legal Studies and Legal Theory at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Erasmus University Rotterdam, graduating cum laude. Bethany also serves as Assistant Counsel at the Public International Law & Policy Group where works on human rights documentation solutions. For the Netherlands Office of PILPG, she is a project coordinator of the Virtual Human Rights Lawyer, a tool that uses technology to address the access to justice gap in relation to international human rights law.
Participants:
Predrag Miletić, HLC Information System
Predrag Miletić is Coordinator of the HLC Information System, an integral part of which is the War Crimes and Past Human Rights Violations Data Base. He is also engaged on the project "Regional Network of Civil Society Organizations for Reconciliation in the Former Yugoslavia: Support for the Establishment of RECOM / The Kosovo Memory Book". He is a point person for the various GIJTR projects related to South Sudan, Iraq, Guinea and other contexts. Predrag graduated in Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, and completed several educational courses on oral history, international humanitarian law, documenting and managing databases.
Juliana Miranda, Democratic Security and Institutional Violence Team in CELS
Juliana Miranda is a researcher at the Democratic Security and Institutional Violence Team in CELS. She holds a degree in Sociology for the University of Buenos Aires and a Diploma in Civil Society Organizations for the Latin American School of Social Sciences, and is currently working on her Masters thesis in Criminology (National University of El Litoral). Her research areas of interest include police brutality, criminal statistics, production and access to information, militarization of security and gender violence.
Anna Pettersson Nulu, Civil Rights Defenders
Anna Pettersson Nulu is a programme officer at Civil Rights Defenders, working on the development and implementation of the documentation tool “Defenders’ Database” and the Natalia Project – a security alarm system for human rights defenders. She is also working in cooperation with a Swedish university to develop Sweden’s first human rights accelerator programme. Prior to joining Civil Rights Defenders, Anna worked together with human rights defenders in Cambodia, focusing on documenting events and human rights violations with cameras and smartphones. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, a master’s degree in Global Studies, and a postgraduate degree in Human Rights Law.
Raphael Mimoun, Horizontal
Raphael is the founder of Horizontal, a non-profit that leverages technology for rights and justice. Horizontal empowers activists, journalists and human rights defenders to operate safely in the face of surveillance, censorship, and repression. At Horizontal, Raphael oversees the design and implementation of all programs, including digital security trainings and the development of tools and apps for civil society groups. Raphael also serves as product manager and UX designer for Tella, a mobile app used to document human rights violations in challenging environments.
Prior to Horizontal, Raphael worked with activists and human rights defenders in repressive environments on strategic planning, civil resistance, and movement building. Raphael has trained dozens of grassroots groups around the world and has consulted on digital security for organizations like Oxfam, Reporters Without Borders, and Vital Voices Global Partnership. Raphael also organizes in Los Angeles around issues of homelessness, police violence, and social justice.
Raphael has published on civil resistance, international affairs, and social justice in publications such as Foreign Policy, the Huffington Post, Newsweek, or Waging Nonviolence. Originally from France, Raphael studied in Israel, Germany and the United States, where he graduated from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Wendy Betts, eyeWitness
Wendy Betts is the Director of eyeWitness to Atrocities, an organisation that combines law and technology to promote accountability for serious international crimes. The eyeWitness system allows human rights documenters to capture photos/videos of human rights violations that can easily be authenticated by a court. She previously served as the Director of the American Bar Association War Crimes Documentation Project. She has written and presented on topics related to human rights documentation, international criminal law, digital evidence, and accountability. Ms. Betts has a M.A. in International Relations/International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Nathan Freitas, Guardian Project
Nathan is the founder and director of Guardian Project, an award-winning, open-source, mobile security collaborative with millions of beneficiaries worldwide. Since 1998, he has developed secure mobile communications systems and developer tools, including the ThinAir Server acquired by Palm, Inc in 2001. Nathan has also worked as an activist with the Tibetan human rights and independence movement for 20 years. Since 2013, Nathan has been an Affiliate Fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard University, and is currently on the Advisory Board for the NuLawLab at Northeastern University.
Founded in 2010, Guardian Project’s most well known app is Orbot, which brings the Tor anonymity and circumvention network to Android devices, and has been installed more than 20 million times. In addition, Guardian Project has led or participated in the development of many secure code libraries, including SQLCipher, NetCipher and Clean Insights. These libraries have been built into over 6000 apps, including Save by OpenArchive, Signal, and even Facebook, WeChat and Salesforce. In partnership with WITNESS, Guardian Project has also pioneered the use of Smart Camera software to enable verified secure mobile media and metadata capture, signing and notarization.
Lindsay Freeman, University of California Berkeley
Lindsay Freeman is the Director of Law and Policy for the Tech and Human Rights Program at the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center. Freeman is an international human rights lawyer with experience working at the International Criminal Court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She specializes in the use of technology, digital evidence and online investigations for justice and accountability purposes, particularly in the investigation and prosecution of high-level perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Freeman leads the drafting team of The Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, an international protocol co-published by HRC and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. She also runs HRC’s professional workshops on open source investigations, and has provided training to numerous organizations including the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, UN Office of Drugs and Crime, and the Institute for International Criminal Investigations. She is a member of the American Bar Association’s International Criminal Justice Standards Advisory Group and the Pacific Council on International Policy. Previously, Freeman worked as a trial lawyer for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and a law clerk in the U.S. Attorney’s Economic Crime and Securities Fraud Unit. She holds an Adv. LL.M. in public International Law from Leiden University, a J.D. from University of San Francisco School of Law and a B.A. in Political Science from Middlebury College.
Wayne Jordash, Global Rights Compliance
Wayne Jordash is the Managing Partner of Global Rights Compliance, a legal advisory Foundation. He has worked in most of the international criminal courts over the last two decades, representing governments, military and political leaders, and victims. Representation has included the representation of the Serbia Government at the International Court of Justice, the (post revolution) the Libyan Government, the Ukrainian Government, the Rohingya victims at the International Criminal Court, and the ex-head of the State Security of Serbia at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Thomas Lynch, UNITAD
Thomas Lynch is a Senior Advisor with the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Dae’sh/ ISIL Crimes. Mr. Lynch is an experienced international lawyer and diplomat with over 20 years specializing in international law, peacekeeping, and political policy. Mr. Lynch has served with the United Nations in 5 different peacekeeping and political missions including Afghanistan, Timor-Leste (Serious Crimes Unit), Sudan, Kosovo (Appellate War Crimes Chamber), and DRC. He has also recently worked with the United States Government in supporting the drafting of the new Libyan constitution.
Host: Dr. Gregory Noone, Ph.D., J.D., PILPG
Dr. Gregory P. Noone, Ph.D., J.D., is a Senior Peace Fellow and Senior Legal Advisor for PILPG. Dr. Noone currently leads the Yemen track- two diplomacy team and serves as the Senior Legal Advisor for the Human Rights Documentation Solutions project. Dr. Noone has conducted PILPG justice system assessments in Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire as well as provided transitional justice assistance in post-Gaddafi Libya and to the Syrian opposition. Dr. Noone was also part of the international effort investigating the Myanmar government’s atrocities committed against their Rohingya population. He worked as an investigator in the refugee camps in Bangladesh and as one of the legal experts on the report’s findings. Dr. Noone also worked as a Senior Program Officer for the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created by the U.S. Congress to promote research, education, and training on the prevention, management and peaceful resolution of international conflicts. While at USIP, Noone received a Special Act Award for his work in Afghanistan. Dr. Noone is a Captain in the United States Navy and has served as the Commanding Officer of the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS) reserve unit and as the Commanding Officer of the Navy JAG International and Operational Law reserve unit as well as the Director of the Department of Defense’s Periodic Review Secretariat (PRS). Dr. Noone previously served on active duty as a judge advocate in the U.S. Navy. He held various positions in the Navy including the Head of the International Law Branch and the Foreign Military Rights Affairs Branch in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) International and Operational Law Division at the Pentagon. Dr. Noone also served at the DIILS, where he trained senior military, governmental and non-governmental civilian personnel in the Law of Armed Conflict, Human Rights and other international law topics, in over sixty countries (and has been to 95 countries). Most notably, he has trained members of the Iraqi National Congress, the post- genocide government in Rwanda, the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, civil society in the Sudan, and senior members of the Russian government. Dr. Noone is the co-author (with Laurie R. Blank) of the widely used textbook: International Law and Armed Conflict: Fundamental Principles and Contemporary Challenges in the Law of War Second Edition (Aspen / Wolters Kluwer Publishing 2019).