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Puzzling Pieces: OSINT and War Crime Accountability in Ukraine
A commentary by Andrea Ricci and Jack Crawford on the RUSI website presents a fascinating perspective into the power of Open Source Intelligence in documenting and enabling accountability for war crimes, while also examining the challenges that are involved in processing the huge volumes of information and disinformation, ensuring a joined up, coordinated and integrated approach, and judicial wariness of using Open Source information.
The writers of the article posit that;
“OSINT’s relevance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is no coincidence, but rather the result of OSINT’s gradual development and acceptance in recent years, in parts thanks to advancements in data tools including geolocation and chronolocation software. Realising its full potential requires a coordinated and prepared approach from government, the private sector and civil society – no small undertaking.
Today, from Luhansk to Lviv and around the world, the online community is filming, posting and resharing evidence of Russian war crimes on social media, online fora and journalistic sites in the hope that someday, victims might hold the guilty to account.
The adoption of OSINT techniques in documenting modern crises has demonstrated a need to expand the production of criminal evidence beyond the traditional triangle of law enforcement, forensic experts and witnesses.
What was once a fledgling ecosystem of citizen journalists has grown into an organised cohort of OSINT practitioners documenting, analysing and presenting open source evidence in court, ultimately pursuing greater degrees of accountability for criminals and malign actors than ever before”.
Read the full and insightful article here: