Investigating Perpetrators: A guide to mapping parties in relation to international humanitarian law and human rights violations Alternative formats available on request to PIAC - Contact PIAC
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) and the Human Rights Center (HRC) at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law have developed a new guide to support investigation of international human rights violations.
Investigating Perpetrators provides practical guidance for investigators on how to use open-source data to comprehensively map potential perpetrators of human rights violations and related crimes.
Establishing a clear understanding of the parties to a conflict or those involved in specific events/incidents is a crucial preliminary step in any investigation into potential perpetrators of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) violations.
The guide supports people and organisations seeking to map parties to a conflict or parties involved in specific events by providing practical guidance and a proven research methodology for assembling disparate information, allowing for a coherent understanding of the structure and location of parties, as well as their potential involvement in IHL and IHRL violations.
The maps that can be developed, showing the structure of security forces, roles within various units and their location over time, are a powerful tool to support accountability processes, including criminal prosecutions, civil cases, vetting processes and sanctions.