The International Council on Archives – Section on Archives and Human Rights (ICA/SAHR) invites you to its next First Tuesday Talk on Tuesday, 9 June 2026 at 16:00 CET (Central European Time/Paris):
Evidence collection, preservation, processing and analysis at the International, Independent and Impartial Mechanism – Syria (IIIM) by Keith Hiatt and Birhane Wossen Reta
KEY INFORMATION
Date and time
Tuesday, 9 June, 16:00 CET (Paris time).
Location
Online
Language
English. Automated translation of subtitles will be available
Date and time
Tuesday, 9 June, 16:00 CET (Paris time).
Location
Online
Language
English. Automated translation of subtitles will be available
The talk is free and open for anyone to join, with recordings made available through the SAHR’s playlist of ICA YouTube channel. Registration is required to receive full details on how to connect to this virtual meeting.
Conference Overview
The International, Independent and Impartial Mechanism – Syria (IIIM) was established by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2024. The IIIM was given a mandate to collect, preserve, consolidate, and analyse evidence of violations of international humanitarian law committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011, for the purpose of facilitating fair and independent criminal proceedings national, regional, and international courts. While this mandate is investigative and legal on its face, its implementation requires a comprehensive and complex approach to information and records management. The IIIM’s work over the past nine years has capitalized on some major opportunities for accountability, but it has also revealed operational and structural challenges to information governance in the context of large-scale evidence collection. This presentation will situate the IIIM in its historical context, explain its novel approach to information management, and raise urgent questions about what comes next.
The session will be moderated by Dagmar Hovestädt, advisor to the Prisons Museum.
SPEAKERS
Keith Hiatt
Keith Hiatt is a lawyer (California bar) and an authority on large-scale management and analysis of digital information and evidence for international criminal investigations and prosecutions. He leads the Information Systems Management Section at the United Nations International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism - Syria (IIIM), where he is responsible for information and evidence management, internet exploitation, cybersecurity and technology. Prior to joining the United Nations, he served as Director of the Technology Program at the Human Rights Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-chaired the Technology Advisory Board of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court. Keith holds a J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and, prior to law school, worked as a software engineer at Microsoft and an applied technology specialist at Boeing.
Birhane Wossen Reta
Birhane Wossen Reta is an Information and Evidence Officer within the Information Systems Management at the IIIM-Syria. She has spent the last fifteen years working with the UN in the field of information management and has held Records and Archives Assistant and Head of Records and Archives Unit positions with the United Nations Mission in Liberia and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She has an undergraduate degree from Addis Ababa University and a graduate certificate from the University of Leicester. She currently serves as a Records and Archives lead and project lead on data protection strategy and implementation at the IIIM.
