Overview / Background
The Human Rights Electronic Evidence Study was a research initiative led by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) to examine how human rights organizations create, collect, manage, and preserve digital documentation.
The project focused on ensuring that electronic evidence—including photographs, videos, audio, text messages, websites, and other digital records—could remain reliable and accessible for advocacy, research, investigations, and legal proceedings.
Current Status
The Human Rights Electronic Evidence Study is no longer an active, standalone CRL initiative. The project produced research and recommendations intended to help libraries, archives, and human rights organizations better manage and preserve electronic human rights documentation.
History: Founding and Context
In 2008, CRL received funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to assess how human rights monitoring groups in the United States, Mexico, Rwanda, and Russia created and collected electronic documentation. The study also examined whether that documentation could effectively support advocacy, investigations, reporting, and legal proceedings.
The project responded to the growing use of digital technologies and social media by human rights organizations. These technologies created new opportunities to document human rights abuses but also introduced challenges related to preservation, technological obsolescence, authenticity, and long-term access.
History: Key Points
- The project began with a 2008 award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
- It examined how human rights organizations collected and managed born-digital documentation.
- Research focused primarily on human rights activities in Mexico, Rwanda, and Russia.
- The study considered photographs, video, audio, text messages, websites, and other forms of electronic documentation.
- CRL examined the complete lifecycle of documentation, from its initial creation and use through long-term preservation and access.
- The project sought to identify best practices, standards, and tools that could help organizations preserve reliable electronic evidence.
Project Outcome
The study identified challenges and best practices for creating, managing, and preserving electronic human rights documentation. Its findings informed recommendations, guidelines, and tools to help organizations maintain reliable digital evidence for long-term use in advocacy, research, investigations, reporting, and legal proceedings.
Ongoing Relevance to CRL’s Mission
Although the study is no longer active, its focus on the long-term preservation of vulnerable digital materials aligns with CRL’s broader commitment to preserving resources of importance to research.
The project highlighted the risks facing born-digital human rights documentation, including technological obsolescence, inadequate metadata, loss of provenance, and challenges maintaining evidence over long periods. It also emphasized the importance of preserving documentation for future research, teaching, advocacy, legal proceedings, and social action.
Funders or Sponsorship and Partners
The project was coordinated by CRL with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
CRL worked with human rights organizations, archives, universities, and documentation initiatives. Organizations involved in assessments or interviews included Amnesty International, HURIDOCS, the International Center for Transitional Justice, Open Society Institute, Ushahidi, and WITNESS.
The project also consulted documentation and preservation initiatives at Columbia University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Connecticut, and the Web Ecology Project.
Launch and Scope
Beginning in 2008, the project assessed the practices and technologies used to create, collect, distribute, store, and preserve electronic human rights documentation. CRL conducted organizational assessments, interviews, and site visits and mapped how digital documentation moved from its initial capture to its eventual use.
Field assessments focused on human rights organizations in Mexico, Rwanda, and Russia, alongside interviews with international organizations and U.S.-based documentation and preservation initiatives.
Membership or Participation
The study did not operate as a membership program. Participation included human rights organizations, advocacy groups, libraries, archives, universities, and other organizations involved in creating, managing, preserving, or using electronic human rights documentation.
CRL also assembled consultants and an advisory group with expertise in human rights, law, documentation, archives, and digital preservation to review project findings and advise on next steps.
Key Activities
- Assessing how human rights organizations create and collect electronic documentation
- Identifying digital formats, platforms, and technologies used by organizations
- Examining how documentation is distributed, stored, and preserved
- Mapping the lifecycle of electronic evidence from initial capture to end use
- Conducting interviews and site visits with human rights organizations
- Evaluating metadata, provenance, and legal requirements for electronic evidence
- Identifying risks to the long-term preservation and usability of digital documentation
- Developing best practices for collecting and maintaining electronic human rights records
- Identifying tools, guidelines, templates, and standards to support organizations working with digital evidence
Page updated 9/23/2026