ClassInfo

This course will familiarize you with core principles and techniques for human rights fact-finding, focusing especially on interviews.

You'll learn practical skills, such as: planning and preparing for fact-finding interviews; navigating ethical and security challenges; tailoring interviews for specific populations; interviewing government or corporate officials; conducting remote interviews; minimizing the risk of retraumatization and vicarious trauma; and adapting fact-finding approaches for restricted or challenging locations.

This seminar uses role-play simulations as a learning tool. Most weeks, you will "learn by doing" as we spend one class session discussing topics and techniques, and the other doing role play exercises in pairs of students. After many shorter practice sessions in class, you'll do a full, in-depth mock interview with me based on a hypothetical scenario.

You will also engage with guest speakers with human rights interviewing experience, and learn by reading methodology sections of recent human rights fact-finding reports.

Through this course, you will understand what fact-finding is, and how fact-finding interviews are used in the human rights field. More specifically, you will develop interviewing skills and knowledge that will enable you to:

• Understand core standards and ethical considerations for human rights interviews

• Mitigate risks of retraumatization and vicarious trauma

• Interview survivors of human rights abuses, and understand best practices for interviewing specific populations

• Interview civil society advocates and service providers

• Interview government or corporate officials

• Navigate remote interviews

• Assess and handle security risks for interviews

• Obtain data and information from official sources