Global Investigative Journalism Network (https://archive.gijn.org/tag/war-crimes/page/2/)
In this second installment of GIJN’s reporting guide for investigating war crimes, experts offer practical tips and tools for covering attacks on civilians on the battlefield and interviewing non-combatant survivors of armed conflict.
In the first section of Chapter 13 of the GIJN Reporter’s Guide to Investigating War Crimes, the Dart Center’s Gavin Rees discusses best practices for interviewing victims and survivors of war crimes and armed conflict.
In this excerpt from GIJN’s Guide to Investigating War Crimes, former British Army officer and open source analyst Nick Waters discusses banned and restricted weapons and the international laws that regulate them.
In this installment of GIJN’s Reporter’s Guide to Investigating War Crimes, investigative reporter Christina Lamb discusses conflict-related sexual violence and the role of the press in investigating these often neglected atrocities.
Editor’s Note: The tipsheet was updated in 2023 by GIJN’s Leonardo Peralta and edited by Nikolia Apostolou. The subject of sexual violence remains a sensitive if not taboo subject in much of the world and often goes unreported.
The subject of sexual violence remains a sensitive if not taboo subject in much of the world and often goes unreported. Watchdog journalism has started digging deeper into sexual violence, but these investigations are still few relative to the estimated number of cases worldwide. GIJN has now updated its reporting guide for this hard-to-cover subject.
In the 12 months since Russia invaded Ukraine, investigative journalists have navigated enormous information challenges and personal risks to expose everything from war crimes and sanctions busting to hidden oligarch loot and Russian “filtration” camps.
Reporting violations in an active conflict, previously a daunting and life threatening task, has now become easier thanks to open-source reporting techniques, which provide investigative journalists much greater ability to investigate war crimes as they happen.
GIJN has assembled a kind of starter-toolkit to help journalists track Russian money, political interference, and disinformation in their own countries. From oligarch planes to sanctions trackers, you’ll find over 30 useful sites here.
Syrian journalists have gained extensive experience documenting possible human rights violations and war crimes by the Russian military. GIJN spoke with several of these reporters to understand the lessons they learned, and how investigative journalists can cover the Ukraine invasion more effectively.