We warmly invite all scholars interested in the latest advancements in criminal procedure, particularly concerning core crimes and human rights abuses, to submit their manuscripts in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian for the Special Issue of Revista Brasileira de Direito Processual Penal (Vol. 10/3). This issue will be published in open access in October 2024!
Below you can find the summary for the Special Issue and all necessary deadlines and details:
“Digital evidence of core crimes and human rights abuses: new actors and new standards of investigation”
Summary: In the realm of severe human rights violations and prosecuting international core crimes, challenges persist. State authorities hesitate to provide crucial evidence, particularly in authoritarian regimes, hindering collaboration. International investigations, more demanding than domestic cases, require extensive resources and navigation in remote settings due to limited access amid prolonged conflicts or state refusals. New task forces and multidisciplinary units are created to incorporate technology and new actors, and support state authorities. Non-state actors, led by civil society groups and individuals, monitor and document core crimes and human rights abuses, utilizing smartphones and advanced digital methods like Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). Their contributions are integrated into legal proceedings, yet challenges persist in ensuring the integrity and authentication of information from these sources. This becomes crucial as digital evidence may stand as the primary piece in a case, warranting the assessment of its probative value and necessity for additional corroboration.
As example, some topics that might fit in this call are operational and technical solutions for handling digital evidence, its reliability and admissibility, good practices and standards, case studies and methods of cooperation between state and non-state actors (NGOS and tech companies) and in general impact of the digitalization and democratization of evidence and investigation in criminal justice.
Timeline:
- Deadline for submissions of articles: until July 21, 2024;
- Period of evaluation: August and September, 2024;
- Prediction for publication: October, 2024.