{"id":979472,"date":"2023-02-02T09:35:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T09:35:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lse.ac.uk\/humanrights\/?p=2706"},"modified":"2023-02-02T09:35:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T09:35:54","slug":"the-role-of-technology-in-the-exposition-of-war-crimes-in-ukraine-how-the-use-of-cutting-edge-technologies-and-open-sources-investigations-can-expose-human-rights-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/02\/02\/the-role-of-technology-in-the-exposition-of-war-crimes-in-ukraine-how-the-use-of-cutting-edge-technologies-and-open-sources-investigations-can-expose-human-rights-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"The Role Of Technology In The Exposition Of War Crimes In Ukraine: How The Use Of Cutting-Edge Technologies And Open-Sources Investigations Can Expose Human Rights Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"
This month marks a year of conflict in Ukraine. Since Russian Forces launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on the 24th February 2022, the world has seen a rise in digital evidence, such as videos, drones, satellite imagery and cutting-edge tools. Whilst this evidence may prove to be extremely efficient to denounce human rights violations and war crimes, there is also a growing risk of misleading information and falsehoods about the war. Amid this stream of information, it is crucial to use a clear methodology based on credible, authentic and ethical evidence-gathering and analysis[1]<\/sup><\/a>, and to analyse and verify each piece of potential evidence.<\/p>\n Maryna Slobodyanyuk is the Head of the investigation department at Truth Hounds, an NGO founded in 2014 by Ukrainian human rights defenders willing to document war crimes when hostilities started with Russian Forces invading the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine. Truth Hounds started conducting field missions in dangerous areas controlled by Russia, in order to uncover atrocities and violations of international humanitarian law, and to reveal the truth. With the development of new technologies in recent years, they started using open-source intelligence (OSINT) to conduct investigations. They implemented a database to register and transfer all cases of collected war crimes, with separate sections for alleged perpetrators and victims\/survivors. The aim is to make each case as structured and complete as possible, and to connect different cases with similar characteristics, such as the same perpetrators, time, place, scale, and operational mode. After cross-cutting this information, it becomes possible to start identifying certain patterns related to war crimes.<\/p>\n