Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley

In 2015, the MacArthur Foundation gave a $1 million grant to the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley. That funding — a version of MacArthur's "Genius" awards for institutions — helped transform the center and its work, co-faculty director Alexa Koenig said. HRC used the money to create a training center for investigators looking into some of the world's biggest crises and conflicts, including in Gaza and Ukraine.

"After we won the award, we were trying to think about how do we best leverage this moment and this opportunity to really take advantage of the fact that we were a small non-profit that's based on one of the biggest public research universities in the world and create an experiential learning program that would act as a bridge between academia and the broader communities around us," Koenig said.
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2021 student fellowship alumna Lucy Meyer has been awarded several awards from the Native American Journalists Association and the Society for Features Journalism for her piece published last December in The Guardian about missing and murdered Indigenous women and the lack of meaningful engagement and response by federal bodies created to address the chronic and devastating trend:

His daughter went missing at 16. But his fight was only beginning When a taskforce was put in place to tackle the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous people, the testimonies of victims’ families were cut short

Get ready for our next summer fellow ! Join us in welcoming Madeline Adee, a PhD Student in Health Policy UC Berkeley School of Public Health.

Madeline Adee (She/Her/Hers) is partnering with American Friends Service Committee to conduct research to describe the planning, purchasing, training, implementation, and after-effects of the use of force within California prisons. The use of force—and military weapons in particular—against incarcerated people within California state prisons has the potential to have significant health impacts for this population. Madeline seeks to help advocate for decarceration efforts, diverting state funding away from weapons purchasing, and reducing the ability of the prison system to respond to incidents with military weapons.

Madeline will be taking over our Instagram from July 6–7 from California. Be sure to follow along!

Get ready for our next summer fellow #InstagramTakeover! Join us in welcoming @madeline_adee, a PhD Student in Health Policy @berkeleypublichealth. Madeline Adee (she/her/hers) is partnering with @afsc_org to conduct research to describe the planning, purchasing, training, implementation, and after-effects of the use of force within California prisons. The use of force—and military weapons in particular—against incarcerated people within California state prisons has the potential to have significant health impacts for this population. Madeline seeks to help advocate for decarceration efforts, diverting state funding away from weapons purchasing, and reducing the ability of the prison system to respond to incidents with military weapons. Madeline will be taking over our Instagram from July 6–7 from California. Be sure to follow along!

The Arabic version of the on Digital Open Source Investigations–the first set of global guidelines for digital investigations–is officially live! We've now published English, Russian & Arabic versions of the Berkeley Protocol, which sets minimum global standards for the identification, collection, documentation and preservation of digital evidence of potential human rights abuses and war crimes. Keep an eye out for the French, Spanish, and Mandarin versions of the Protocol coming out later this year, and stay tuned for upcoming in-person launch events!

Check out the Protocol, co-authored by Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley School of Law and United Nations' OHCHR, below:

Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations: A Practical Guide on the Effective Use of Digital Open Source and Information in Investigating Violations of International Criminal, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law The Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations identifies international standards for conducting online research of alleged violations of international criminal, human rights, and humanitarian law. The Protocol provides guidance on methodologies and procedures for gathering, analysing,....

Meta’s Oversight Board Recommends Major Advance in International Accountability In a recent ruling, Meta's Oversight Board recommends a protocol to balance considerations related to conflict-related content.

Join our team as an Assistant Director for our Fellowship Program & HRC Events! You’ll be responsible for running HRC’s fellowship program, and will be responsible for planning and executing events we sponsor / co-sponsor on and off-campus. Read more about the role and apply below:

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"Health workers in conflict zones are dealing with a triple whammy," said HRC research fellow, emergency physician, and UC Berkeley lecturer Rohini Haar in a new NPR Goats & Soda piece on the historic levels of violence and threats against health workers, care facilities, and hospitals in conflict zones last year:

2022 was the worst year on record for attacks on health care workers A new report from the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition documents almost 2,000 incidents in 2022: "a shockingly violent year against health care, especially in Ukraine and in Myanmar."

Watching out for the watchers: How content moderators can stay safe from harm too | WebPurify™ Profanity Filter How do you stop the people who monitor harmful content from becoming harmed themselves? Alexa Koenig of the Human Rights Center shares her insight.

Participate | RightsCon Costa Rica Whether you plan to join us in-person in San José or online, we’ve put together guidance to help you prepare for your participation.

Don't miss our hybrid RightsCon session on Cyberwar in Ukraine, co-sponsored by Microsoft! Moderated by US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack and Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley Director of Technology, Law & Policy Lindsay Freeman, this panel will explore the roles, responsibilities & accountability required by international law in the cyber sphere.

Our panelists include John Hering, Senior Government Affairs Manager at Microsoft; Gavin Wilde, Senior Fellow with the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Francesca Bosco, Senior Advisor of Strategy and Partnerships at the CyberPeace Institute; and Talita Dias, Senior Research Fellow of the International Law Programme at Chatham House.

This will be a hybrid in-person and virtual event. Both in-person and virtual attendees will need to register for RightsCon; free and discounted tickets are available at the link below. Upon registration, participants can add the event titled, “Cyberwar in Ukraine: The Roles, Responsibilities, and Accountability Required by International Law,” to their personalized schedule. We'll see you there!

Will you be at 2023? On June 8, tune into our online session on using the Berkeley Protocol in Ukraine. This session will be moderated by Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley’s Research Manager Brian Nguyen, and includes panelists Nadia Volkova, Founder and Director of the Ukraine Legal Advisory Group and the Ukraine 5AM Coalition, and Roksolana Burianenko, Program manager of the Ukraine Archive at Mnemonic. This virtual panel will also feature a representative from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine.

Please join us as we learn from our experts on how the was adapted and adopted for documentation, collection and preservation efforts in Ukraine.

Participants can register online for free by clicking “Free Online Ticket.” Upon registration, you can add our event titled, “Berkeley Protocol in Action: Successes and Challenges for Implementing Digital Investigation Standards in Ukraine” to your personalized RightsCon schedule.

This event will take place on June 8 at 6:45 am PST | 7:45 am CST | 9:45 am EST | 3:45 pm CET. We'll (virtually) see you there!

RightsCon Costa Rica registration is open! This post gives an overview of the registration options for RightsCon Costa Rica (June 5-8, 2023), including guidance on free and discounted tickets.