Annual Report 2020

We endeavour to share NHC documentation experience and technology to more regions affected by widespread and systematic human rights abuse or war crimes.

A core task of the NHC is to promote accountability and to preserve a factual record of historical events. One of the tools of the NHC Centre for International Justice in this regard is the Investigation Documentation System (I-DOC), a software program developed by our partner Case Matrix Network, drawing on experience from the International Criminal Court (ICC). It can be said to mimic the mind of a prosecutor and is particularly useful in handling large and complex situations and cases of abuse.

I-DOC is a tool for work on facts related to serious violations of international human rights and criminal law, including analysis, investigation, and case preparation. I-DOC provides capabilities to set up databases that catalogues documentation and evidence, criminal incidents and contextual facts, suspects and institutions involved, victims and witnesses, as well as protected property and objects.

– Our experience in working with cutting edge technology, applying it to concrete situations of mass abuse and at the same time dealing with a challenging security environment, is unique and has made NHC an important interlocutor in the region, comments Aage Borchgrevink, Head of the Centre.

The NHC Natalia Estemirova Documentation Centre (NEDC), the world’s largest archive of material on human rights violations and international crimes committed in Russia’s North Caucasus-region, uses the I-DOC system for its database. NEDC has since 2011 been a core component of NHC’s documentation work. It is run in co-operation with a range of international and Russian partners and now constitutes a vital part of the work of the international justice centre.

During 2020 NHC was involved in various ways in three separate projects based on ‘universal jurisdiction’, i.e., a principle of international law that some crimes are so grave that they can be tried in other jurisdictions than where they occurred. One of the projects involved assistance to the German organization European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) to file criminal complaints against Syrian officials accused of systematic torture. A criminal trial that opened in Koblenz, Germany, in April 2020 against two former officials from the Assad regime profited from these efforts, which also included complaints to police in Norway, Sweden, and a range of other European states.

The NHC has also assisted our partner Truth Hounds in Ukraine in setting up an I-DOC database for crimes committed in the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. Similarly, the NHC Centre has advised the Ukrainian government regarding a database for the gathering of evidence on crimes. A major breakthrough occurred in February 2020, when the Ukrainian government made an official decision to allow one of its prosecutorial offices, the Prosecutor in Exile for Crimea, to install I-DOC on its internal server using methods and best practices developed by the NEDC.

Throughout 2020 Truth Hounds registered 1080 individual materials in its I-DOC database for Eastern Ukraine. Based on analysis of this evidence, Truth Hounds found 190 incidents amounting to war crimes or crimes against humanity. These incidents involve 727 victims, 403 witnesses and 40 suspects. Truth Hounds have advised other NGOs in Belarus and Ukraine on high quality documentation and how to set up I-DOC databases, in accordance with NHC’s aim of strengthening local civil society through the transfer of competence and sharing of experience. This process goes both ways as NHC profits from the experience of Truth Hounds and others.

A major breakthrough in the search for accountability in Ukraine took place in December 2020, when the then Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, announced that she would ask for the Court’s approval to open an investigation into crimes committed in Ukraine from 2014 onwards. 

– The documentation work of Truth Hounds and other Ukrainian and international NGOs, including the NHC, has been vital in this regard, says Aage Borchgrevink. – In the future we hope to share our documentation experience and technology to other regions affected by widespread and systematic human rights abuse and/or war crimes.

2020 also included breakthroughs in other respects. An expert review panel came up with a range of recommendations on how to strengthen the International Criminal Court (ICC). And in a consequential decision, the EU Council decided to establish an EU global targeted sanctions mechanism to address international crimes and serious violations of human rights.

These moves came after intensive civil society campaigning, in which the NHC took part. – A strengthened ICC and a well-functioning EU Magnitsky sanctions mechanism may make our documentation work even more relevant, added Gunnar M. Ekelove-Slydal, Deputy Secretary and overseeing NHC’s work related to international justice institutions. – High-quality input from us and our partners may facilitate international trials and/or lead to targeted human rights sanctions. In this way the fight against impunity in the post-Soviet space gets more teeth.