Thank you to the Diplomatic Legal Hub, Ukrinform, and everyone gathered here today.

I will offer a few brief opening remarks before turning to my formal address.

I would like to frame this discussion from the perspective of an international journalist, independent publisher, and foreign media professional. I will begin by introducing today’s participants, then provide some background on the Berkeley Protocol before moving to the formal speech itself.

Liudmyla Kozhura is a Doctor of Law, professor, and Director of the Law Institute at Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman. Her work spans legal education, jurisprudence, institutional development, and professional training, applying academic expertise to questions of journalistic materials, evidentiary standards, international justice, and the documentation of war crimes.

Nadiia Balahurak is a Ukrainian journalist, war correspondent, and press officer with a military brigade. Her work combines frontline communication, military reporting, and the public documentation of Russia’s war against Ukraine. She examines how war journalists record and document suspected war crimes while adhering to professional responsibilities and international evidentiary standards.

Marichka Baisa is Head of the Communications Department at the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine. Her work focuses on strategic communications, official information, media coordination, and public messaging during wartime. She contributes institutional expertise on why war journalism must rely on official sources when reporting military operations and alleged war crimes.

Yana But is an attorney with Vidsich Law Association. Her contribution focuses on the legal challenges surrounding the evidentiary value of digital materials created by war journalists. She explores how documentation, verification, preservation, and professional legal standards shape the use of journalistic records in war-crimes accountability processes.

Mark McNamee is Head of Strategy at Two Ravens and co-founder of UBN Network. Based in Kyiv, he analyzes Ukraine’s wartime political economy, security environment, defense technology, and reconstruction. His role on today’s agenda focuses on practical OSINT methods for verifying journalistic materials and documenting war crimes through reliable open-source evidence.

Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security lawyer, geopolitical analyst, President of Scarab Rising, and Editor-in-Chief of The Washington Outsider. Her work covers foreign policy, security, disinformation, and legal analysis. She addresses the role of war journalists in countering disinformation and safeguarding reliable information about war crimes for a global audience.

Eleonora Belei is Head of Research at War Archive and an international law specialist whose work focuses on Ukraine, accountability, and evidence preservation. She connects digital archiving, research systems, and justice-oriented documentation, examining how materials gathered by war journalists move from collection and preservation into research, historical memory, and accountability proceedings.

Giorgio Provinciali is an engineer, researcher, war journalist, international correspondent, analyst, and author reporting from Ukraine. He writes from the front lines of the Russo-Ukrainian War, examining military realities, civilian suffering, and democratic resilience. His contribution focuses on the practical realities of wartime reporting, professional standards, operational risk, and documenting a prolonged conflict.

Nestor Barchuk is Head of International Relations for Prisoners of War in the Strategic Communications Department of the 1st Corps of Ukraine’s National Guard “Azov.” He is also a lawyer specializing in prisoner-of-war advocacy and accountability for the Olenivka massacre. His contribution examines the documentation of crimes committed against Ukrainian prisoners through journalism and strategic communications.

Miro Vanadze is a Georgian servicemember in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, President of the International Assembly of the Georgian People, and founder of the NGO Ukrainian Veterans League of MMA. A veteran and public advocate, he discusses how military experience can help witnesses preserve evidence and document war crimes responsibly.

Today, here in Kyiv on July 10, during one of the longest and most consequential conflicts in twenty-first-century Europe, we come together as civil society advocates, communications professionals, criminal-law practitioners, diplomatic and legal experts, human rights defenders, legal scholars, media publishers, open-source investigators, public accountability advocates, war correspondents, and war journalists to continue the public discussion and practical development of the Berkeley Protocol under wartime conditions.

The Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, in its current and most significant application, refers to the joint OHCHR–UC Berkeley Human Rights Center standard governing the use of publicly available online information in human rights, humanitarian, and international criminal investigations.

A brief historical perspective is useful. Work on the Protocol began at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2009. It evolved through years of workshops and more than 150 expert consultations. An advanced English-language version was released in December 2020, followed by its formal publication by the United Nations in 2022.

Its coordinating committee included Lindsay Freeman, Alexa Koenig, and Eric Stover, with support from Stephanie Croft, Andrea Trewinnard, and Elise Baker, alongside broader contributions from the OHCHR, working groups within the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, United Nations investigators, and more than 150 expert consultations. Its objective was to professionalize digital open-source investigations without tying the guidance to any particular platform or technological tool.

That is why this discussion in Kyiv matters today. The Berkeley Protocol provides journalists, lawyers, publishers, investigators, and public institutions with a common framework for preserving the truth under wartime conditions.

Now I turn to my formal contribution, entitled “From Witnessing to Accountability: War Journalists, Digital Evidence, and the Berkeley Protocol in Ukraine.”

The central question before us today, in the context of the Berkeley Protocol and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, is how witnessing is transformed into accountability. The Russo-Ukrainian War, from 2014 to the present, has become one of the most extensively documented conflicts in human history.

Previous eras of warfare were marked by significant obstacles to documentation, including censorship, delays in gathering evidence and testimony, and the destruction of both evidence and witnesses. The Information Age has altered that reality, at least in part.

Documentation can now be immediate, digital, overwhelming, and public. A missile or drone strike may be recorded within seconds. A destroyed hospital can appear in satellite imagery almost instantly. A victim’s final message may survive on a mobile phone. A convoy route, a weapon fragment, a public post, or a video uploaded to social media may later become part of a broader evidentiary architecture and an expanding typology of evidence.

This creates new opportunities for journalism—and with them, new responsibilities and new risks for the profession under wartime conditions.

We should also be clear about the journalist’s role. A journalist is not necessarily a prosecutor, intelligence officer, or lawyer, although some may possess relevant training or professional experience in those fields. Journalism remains its own distinct profession.

Nevertheless, journalists may be among the first professional witnesses to facts and events that ultimately matter for justice, historical memory, and the rule of law. It is here that the Berkeley Protocol becomes particularly relevant. It provides journalists, investigators, lawyers, publishers, civil society organizations, and public institutions with a common framework for handling digital material responsibly.

At the same time, journalism is not transformed into law enforcement. Rather, it contributes to the identification, collection, verification, analysis, reporting, and preservation of publicly available information in ways that are consistent with the principles of human rights, international humanitarian law, and international criminal accountability.

Through choices made by a foreign power, Ukraine has become one of the defining early twenty-first-century test cases for international law and human rights in Europe. We—speaking of the international community engaged in human rights law and international journalism covering this war—now possess an extraordinary digital record: battlefield documentation, civilian testimony, drone footage, government communications, journalistic reporting, NGO archives, satellite imagery, and even Telegram posts.

None of these materials, however, automatically constitute reliable evidence. Each must be handled with care. Evidence can be lost, but it can also be mishandled. A photograph without its original file may lose evidentiary value. Videos stripped of metadata become more difficult to authenticate. Witnesses identified prematurely may be placed at risk. Geolocation data published carelessly can expose sensitive military positions. Social media posts presented without context may mislead rather than inform. Each may reflect genuine events or sentiments while still falling short of the legal standards required in court. Errors should be corrected whenever possible. The transition from witnessing to accountability therefore demands discipline.

It also requires what might be called a practical translational ethic—that is, the process by which online content becomes legally admissible evidence before the Prosecutor General, the International Criminal Court, and other relevant institutions. Mere observation, publication, accusation, and collection must give way to preservation, verification, contextualization, and protection.

That practical ethic operates within the framework established by the Berkeley Protocol.

First, preserve original material whenever possible, including metadata, original files, source information, timestamps, and URLs.

Second, recognize that some material may endanger survivors, expose witnesses, reveal military positions, or compromise future legal proceedings if handled irresponsibly.

Third, distinguish information from evidence. We possess far more information than evidence, and far more evidence than legally admissible evidence. A post, image, or video may be significant, but significance is not the same as admissibility. Open-source information becomes legally useful only through proper preservation, verification, and contextualization.

Fourth, verify across multiple layers: the content itself, the file, and its source. Who originally posted it? Where did it originate? Has the file been altered? Does the imagery correspond with the claimed location? Does the timing align with shadows, weather conditions, explosion reports, satellite imagery, or other independent sources?

Fifth, protect people before protecting the story. The dead deserve dignity, and the living deserve safety. Survivors, witnesses, prisoners, children, medical personnel, and civilians living under occupation are not simply sources of content.

They are individuals whose rights must remain paramount. This is where journalism and human rights intersect most clearly.

The finest wartime journalism does more than document destruction. It preserves the conditions under which truth remains knowable. The Berkeley Protocol likewise reminds us that digital open-source investigation is not an exercise in technological fascination or dependence.

For Ukraine, the public responsibility is immense. The world is watching. Courts are watching. Future historians are watching. Survivors are watching. Perpetrators are watching.

The struggle that follows atrocity is often a struggle over memory. Denial tends to follow a familiar progression: “This did not happen.” “It happened, but not as you say.” “It happened, but it no longer matters.” The Berkeley Protocol offers a practical response to each claim. It calls upon us to preserve the record, verify the record, protect the record, explain the record, and ensure that the record remains usable in the pursuit of justice.

That is the movement from witnessing to accountability.