UN Expert Urges Tech Rules to Protect Victims Seeking Justice After War and Repression

Investigators and justice practitioners are finding new ways to use technology to establish what happened, identify patterns of abuse and support accountability.

Technology is helping investigators uncover abuses and giving victims new ways to take part in justice processes after conflict or repression. The same tools can expose people to surveillance, spread hateful content and deepen divisions in communities already struggling with trauma and mistrust, a UN expert has warned.

Presenting his report to the UN General Assembly, Bernard Duhaime, the Special Rapporteur on truth, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence, called for urgent regulation of technology companies grounded in human rights. With debate over artificial intelligence intensifying, he said the rights and needs of victims must guide how these tools are used in societies confronting past violence.

Digital tools can help uncover the truth

Investigators and justice practitioners are finding new ways to use technology to establish what happened, identify patterns of abuse and support accountability. Open-source information can contribute to investigations and truth-seeking, and biometric and forensic tools can strengthen efforts to secure justice. Large language models are being used to detect patterns of abuse, with encryption helping victims and witnesses participate safely in legal proceedings.

These applications can support the work of people seeking answers after serious violations, but their value depends on the conditions in which they are introduced and the protections available to those using them. Transitional settings often combine weak institutions, political volatility, widespread trauma and deeply divided communities, making the consequences of poorly designed or poorly governed technology especially serious.

Rebuilding trust takes more than technology

Unequal digital skills can prevent some people from using tools intended to support justice. Online surveillance can put participants at risk, and algorithms that amplify disinformation and hate speech can fuel divisions and increase the danger of renewed violations.

Duhaime warned against treating technological progress as a substitute for confronting the causes of violence and repression. Reconciliation requires people to work through trauma, learn to live alongside former adversaries and rebuild confidence in public institutions and leaders. These processes take time and depend on human relationships that technology cannot recreate.

"New technologies must be seen as a tool for victims and practitioners, but never as a self-standing solution," he said. Keeping victims' needs at the centre means assessing technology through its effects on their safety, rights and participation, including the risks faced by people whose experiences or limited digital knowledge could leave them excluded.

Governments and companies must put safeguards in place

The Special Rapporteur called on governments to ensure that technology companies meet their human rights responsibilities and to adopt strong data protection laws. Investigators, prosecutors and judges need training in collecting and assessing digital evidence, so that justice systems can use it responsibly. Wider digital literacy initiatives are also needed to help people in transitional settings understand and use the technologies affecting their lives.

For companies, Duhaime called for heightened care and scrutiny of human rights risks, recognising transitional settings as a distinct category of high-risk environments. Companies should establish transparent policies, consistent with human rights, for storing data that could become evidence of international crimes. People affected by violations must have opportunities to complain and obtain redress.

Communities also need a meaningful voice in decisions about the products, policies and operations introduced into their societies, where the consequences may reach far beyond the immediate use of a platform or tool. "They must above all, ensure that communities are consulted and placed at the centre in the development and deployment of their products, policies and operations," Duhaime said.