Documentation for Human Rights Investigations in a Digital World: Opportunities and Harms
Daragh Murray (Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University London School of Law and IHSS Fellow)
Yvonne McDermott Rees (Professor at Swansea University)
Alexa Koening (Co-Faculty Director, Director of Investigations, and Professor at Berkeley HRC)
On the event
Please join us as we explore how open source information, satellite imagery, and digital data have revolutionised human rights documentation. This session examines how investigators now verify abuses in previously inaccessible regions and create compelling evidence for accountability. The panel will discuss methodologies that have transformed human rights work—from analyzing social media content to mapping patterns of destruction through remote sensing. Participants will gain insights into both technical approaches and ethical considerations guiding this evolving field. The discussion will critically address potential harms, including verification challenges amid manipulated media, and uneven access to technological resources across global human rights movements. This session offers valuable perspectives for investigators, researchers, students, and anyone interested in the intersection of technology and human rights accountability.
On the speakers
Sam Dubberley is the director of the Technology, Rights & Investigations division at Human Rights Watch (HRW). Prior to joining HRW, Sam was the head of the Evidence Lab at Amnesty International where he conducted and led on a wide range of open source research for Amnesty International, including the 2021 Webby Award-winning platform "Teargas: An Investigation" and investigative collaborations with several media organisations, including CNN and NHK.
At Amnesty he set up and managed the Digital Verification Corps - a partnership between six global universities contributing directly to Amnesty’s open source research. The project was awarded international collaboration of the year at the Times Higher Education awards in 2019, and the innovative teaching award from the University of Cambridge in 2021.
Sam is a fellow of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, where he was a research consultant for their Human Rights Big Data and Technology Project. He has been a fellow of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Colombia University and was a founding partner of First Draft News - an organisation established in 2015 to combat harmful misinformation.
Sam is the co-editor of the book ‘Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation, and Accountability’ published by Oxford University Press. He has also published research on the impact of viewing harmful content during open source investigation and the risk of vicarious trauma.
He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge, a post-graduate degree from the University of Leicester, and an MBA from Koç University in Istanbul.
Daragh Murray is a Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University London School of Law, and a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. He specialises in international human rights law and the law of armed conflict, with a particular interest in the use of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies. He has been awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship to examine the impact of artificial intelligence on individual identity development and the functioning of democratic societies. This 4 year project runs until January 2026 with a current focus on law enforcement, intelligence agency, and military AI applications, and on understanding the ‘chilling effects’ of surveillance. Previous research examined the relationship between human rights law and the law of armed conflict and the regulation and engagement of non-State armed groups.
Daragh's research has been covered by BBC Newsnight, BBC PM, PBS Newshour (US), The New York Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, La Repubblica, Le Monde, BBC Radio 4 and other national news outlets across the world.
Daragh co-authored Facial Recognition Surveillance: Policing and human rights in the age of AI (OUP 2025) with Prof. Pete Fussey, due for publication in July 2025. He was also involved in the development of the UN Model Protocol for Law Enforcement Officials to Promote and Protect Human Rights in the Context of Peaceful Protests, and co-authored the annex to the Protocol on Human Rights Compliant Uses of Digital Technologies by Law Enforcement for the Facilitation of Peaceful Protests.
He publishes an AI & Human Rights newsletter each week.
Daragh is the author of 'Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Armed Groups' (Hart, 2016). He also authored the 'Practitioners Guide to Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict' in conjunction with Dapo Akande, Charles Garraway, Francoise Hampson, Noam Lubell and Elizabeth Wilmshurst. (OUP 2016) and is co-editor of 'Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation and Accountability (OUP 2020) with Alexa Koenig and Sam Dubberley.
He has a PhD in Law from the University of Essex, an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, and an MSc in Computer Security & Forensics from Dublin City University.
Yvonne joined the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law in September 2017, having previously been a Senior Lecturer in Law at Bangor University. She has also worked for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, and as a consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Yvonne holds undergraduate law degrees from the National University of Ireland, Galway, an LL.M. (cum laude) in Public International Law from Leiden University, and a Ph.D. from the Irish Centre for Human Rights. Her doctoral thesis was awarded the Special Mention of the Rene Cassin Thesis Prize 2014 and was later published by Oxford University Press as Fairness in International Criminal Trials in 2016. She is an Academic Bencher at the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, and a Legal Advisor to the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN).
Alexa Koenig, PhD, MA, JD, is Co-Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center; Director of HRC’s Investigations Program; and Research Professor of Law at Berkeley Law, where she teaches classes that focus on the intersection of emerging technologies and human rights; and a lecturer in the investigative reporting program at Berkeley Journalism. Alexa co-founded the Investigations Lab, which trains students and professionals to use social media and other digital open source content to strengthen human rights research, reporting, and accountability. Alexa is an advisory board member of Physicians for Human Rights, a member of the Technology Advisory Board for the Innovation Lab at Human Rights First, and a co-founder of the University of California Digital Investigations Network. She previously helped establish and co-chaired the Technology Advisory Board of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court; co-chaired the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Law Committee; served on the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility; and was a member of the University of California’s Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence, for which she co-chaired the Human Resources subcommittee. Alexa has been honored with several awards for her work, including the United Nations Association-SF’s Global Human Rights Award, UC Berkeley’s Mark Bingham Award for Excellence, and the Eleanor Swift Award for Public Service. She has also been honored with a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center (2019), with multiple writing residencies at Mesa Refuge, as a Woman Inspiring Change by Harvard’s Women’s Law Association (2020), and as one of “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics” by Women in AI Ethics (2022). She directed development of the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations and has conducted trainings on open source investigation methods at organizations around the world. Alexa has a BA from UCLA in World Arts and Cultures summa cum laude, a JD from the University of San Francisco with a specialization in cyberlaw and intellectual property magna cum laude, and both an MA and a PhD from UC Berkeley’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program with honors.