The “events” method for documenting human rights violations: Watch the webinar!

The events method allows defenders to document individual cases of human rights violations in order to better understand patterns.

By Kristin Antin on

Are you an organisation, human rights group, or activist registering, documenting, analysing human rights cases?

Watch this webinar of the events method for documenting human rights violations!

Data is like water – it needs a container to make it useful. The beginning of a human rights documentation projects often starts with containers like lists and spreadsheets. But at some point, the information will outgrow these containers – both in terms of quantity and complexity.

The way you design these containers will have an impact on what information you will gather, how you organise the information, and the kind of analysis you can carry out. HURIDOCS and its network developed the Events Standard Formats methodology (we now call the events method) – to provide a container specifically for organisations documenting human rights violations.

The purpose of the events method is to capture essential information with regard to individual cases of human rights violations in order to better understand patterns of violence, including “who did what to whom”. It involves gathering information about:

  • facts: what happened, where, and when
  • the possible human rights violations that were committed
  • the persons involved: which alleged perpetrator did what to which victim, what are the sources of information and which interventions were made.

Check the webinar presentation here:


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