The 2023-2024 Global Justice Investigations Lab First Iteration
The first Iteration of the lab ran in periods 2 and 3 of the 2023-2024 academic school year. The event kicked off with a keynote speech from journalist and OSI expert Manisha Ganguly.
The Lab began with a series of lectures, seminars, and workshops from experts and practitioners in the field, with the aim of teaching students to be comfortable with hands-on OSI skills. Skills learned in the first iteration included Chrono-Location, Geolocation, Data-driven analysis, and Flight and Vessel Tracking.
Building on this foundation of skills, students were divided into groups to work directly with one of the societal partners on a real-world OSI project. The lab was finalized with the GJIL Impact Event, where students were given the opportunity to present their projects to each other and the partners.
2023-2024 Student Report - Attacks on Journalists Reporting from Protests
Working together with Amnesty International’s Digital Verification Corp, students in this project group used open-source investigation techniques to collect and verify images related to police attacks on journalists during protests. The students collected and verified images from around the world. The attached report details two case studies from Brazil and the United States.
2023-2024 Student Report - Airwars Project
The Airwars Project for 2023-2024 focused on geolocating allegations of harm from Syria related to Russian actions, essential for revealing new patterns of harm related to Russian forces, which eventually can be used in the pursuit of justice and accountability.
2023-2024 Student Report - UU May 7 - 9 Events
The purpose of this report is to present a chronology of the pro-Palestine protests that took place on and around the Utrecht University city center campus on May 7 - 9 2024, and the responses to these protests.
Student testimonials
"The Open-Source Global Justice Lab was an experience unlike anything I have had the opportunity to do before, the combination of teaching as well as practical experience, allowed me to establish a basis for future work in this field."
"I am struck by how much I have learned—not just about the technical aspects of open-source investigation and global justice, but also about the softer skills that are just as crucial, such as teamwork and the importance of recognizing biases in our work."
"The Open-source Investigations lab has been one of the most significant and meaningful experiences I have ever had. Personally, since the very beginning of the Lab, I have believed that open-source investigations may become the new frontier in evidence-finding in International legal cases. This project revealed to be more interesting and stimulating every week and it pushed me to deal with concepts and disciplines I was not familiar with. After almost six months, I can confirm that everything I learned during the lab has been beneficial to me. I will for sure apply for a job that concerns open-source investigations, and I am very proud of having been part of the first Open-Source investigation lab at Utrecht University."
