Reboot of traditional methods Human rights documentation has traditionally involved interviewing victims and witnesses and gathering corroborating evidence. It focuses on a specific event or incident. The goal is to find out what happened, to whom, by whom, where, when, and how. Answering these six questions is fairly straightforward when governments violate These type of violations are complex and deeply-rooted. They’re not limited to a specific event or incident. Instead, they result from systemic dysfunctions in ways laws, policies, and regulations are designed and implemented, which traditional documentation methods struggle to uncover. Those dysfunctions can be caused by a large number of actors and factors, which makes it hard to pinpoint who is responsible A broader approach to documentation can help shed light on the actors and factors that influence the way laws, policies and regulations impact groups in particular ways. a negative obligation (an obligation not to do something). Torture, arbitrary arrests, crackdowns on peaceful protests, forced evictions, and sterilization without consent are examples. However, the questions (what, to whom, by whom, where, when and how) are often much harder to answer for positive obligations. Positive obligations require the government to do something. This could be to do something at all or to do something differently. A vast number of human rights violations—particularly violations of economic, social and cultural rights—fall into this second category. Human trafficking, labor exploitation, police brutality, malnutrition, homelessness, illiteracy, and preventable disease are examples. 11