The US Has a Plan to Document Human Rights Violations in Ukraine

The US will fund data-gathering on the conflict. The move would lay the groundwork for war-crime prosecutions and give humanitarian organizations real-time data.

The Conflict Observatory will use open source investigation techniques and satellite imagery to monitor the conflict in Ukraine and collect evidence of possible war crimes. The database would be accessible to outside organizations and international investigators, according to a US State Department spokesman.

According to a State Department press release, the Conflict Observatory partners include Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, and a geographic information systems company. Nathaniel Raymond, a lecturer at Yale, says that the Observatory will have access to commercial satellite data and imagery from the US government, which will allow civil society groups to move at a faster pace.

Raymond uses technology to investigate conflicts and crises. He was the director of operations for the Satellite Sentinel Project, founded by George Clooney, which used satellite imagery to monitor the conflict in South Sudan and documented human rights abuses. It was the first initiative of its kind, but it would be too costly for other organizations to duplicate.

The Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law has an executive director who says this kind of work is very labor-intensive. You can use open source information to conduct a legal investigation or humanitarian relief.

The data the Observatory will use is not classified and will be taken from commercial contracts with private companies. Having access to many types of data in one place would make it powerful. The Observatory will not make its data open source, unlike many other humanitarian projects, according to Raymond.

The level of detail and how fast imagery data can be collected means that it can be used to target civilians and protected infrastructure.

Raymond is aware of the risks. The group published a report that may have led to the kidnapping of a group of Chinese road workers by the South Sudan People's Liberation Army. Raymond says locals could have identified the terrain and the road crew by looking at the image.