Filming for human rights can be dangerous. It can put you, the people you are
filming and the communities you are filming in at risk. Carefully assess the risks
before you press “record”.
INTRODUCTION
This Field Guide sets forth guidelines, techniques, practices and ideas to help you collect and document
video to the highest possible standard — what is also called a “trial-ready” standard. This ensures
investigators, analysts, lawyers, and judges can rely on the video when making decisions about a
person’s innocence or guilt in a criminal investigation or about remedies in a civil case. In many cases,
this guidance can be essential to making your video easier to verify and trust; however, you should not
worry if you cannot implement all of it. Every frontline documenter faces challenges in the field that
sometimes make it impossible to film, organize, manage, protect, and share footage to a trial-ready
standard. Realistically, only a fraction of the video captured by frontline documenters will ever meet
these trial-ready standards and be presented inside of a courtroom.
This being the case, in this section we will highlight the other human rights justice and accountability
processes where video can still have profound value in protecting human rights without meeting this
trial-ready standard.
GOAL
The goal of this section is to briefly outline the primary human rights justice and accountability
processes — beyond the courtroom — where video documentation can be used to protect human rights.
PART I
PART II
Human Rights Justice and Accountability Processes
Who Does What?
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VIDEO AS EVIDENCE: VIDEO BEYOND THE COURTROOM V 1.0
LAW
THE ROLE OF VIDEO
BEYOND THE COURTROOM