iSpy – War Crimes and Digital Documentation
Promise Institute for Human Rights – Tech and Human Rights Series
The spread of Internet access and the proliferation of personal recording technologies has dramatically changed how evidence of war crimes and human rights violations are documented and shared with the world. However, these opportunities are dependent on the private sector intermediaries which supply and maintain the mechanisms for mass communication, while the rise of sophisticated techniques for manipulating media has led to new challenges in authentication. The Promise Institute for Human Rights and Institute for Technology, Law and Policy at UCLA Law, co-sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, held a conversation with practitioners at the forefront of thinking through how to access this evidence, verify its authenticity, and use it in pursuit of justice for the world’s gravest crimes.
Dia Kayyali, Associate Director, Advocacy at Mnemonic
Lindsay Freeman, Law and Policy Director, Technology and Human Rights Program, Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law
Sun Kim, Legal Officer, United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM)
Moderated by: Jessica Peake, Assistant Director, Promise Institute for Human Rights; Director, International & Comparative Law Program
About the Speakers:
Dia Kayyali is Associate Director for Advocacy at Mnemonic, the umbrella organization for Syrian Archive, Yemeni Archive, and Sudanese Archive. In their role, Dia focuses on the real-life impact of policy decisions made by lawmakers and technology companies about content moderation and related topics. Previously, Dia served as Program Manager for tech + advocacy at WITNESS. They got their start in digital rights as an Activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Dia serves as co-chair for the Advisory Network to the Christchurch Call, is a member of the Legal Frameworks and Content-sharing Algorithms, Processes, and Positive Interventions working groups of the GIFCT, and is on the Advisory Board for OnlineCensorship.org.They hold a JD from University of California Hastings College of the Law.
Lindsay Freeman is an international criminal and 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, and led the drafting of the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations.
Sun Kim is a Legal Officer at the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (“IIMM”) which is mandated to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of serious international crimes and other violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011. Prior to this, Sun was a Staff Attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit where she handled civil and immigration cases. Sun’s international law experience includes her position as an Associate Legal Officer at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where she served in Chambers on the case of The Prosecutor v. Radovan Karadžić; an attorney for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin; and at the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. Sun earned her LL.M. from Leiden University, a J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law, a Masters from Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. from UC Berkeley.