Publications
Putting Principles into Practice: Reflections on a Mock Admissibility Hearing on Open Source Evidence
In this new paper, TRUE's PI Yvonne McDermott Rees and colleagues from the Global Legal Action Network present the results of a mock admissibility hearing on open source evidence held in 2021. The chapter is forthcoming in the book International Law in Domestic Courts, co-edited by TRUE Affiliated Researcher Konstantina Stavrou. The mock admissibility hearing is available online in full here.
Drawing Conclusions: Representing and Evaluating Competing Explanations
In this new paper, TRUE's post-doctoral research associate Alice Liefgreen and Advisory Board member David Lagnado assess how competing explanations of the same evidence are structured, evaluated and compared in the context of legal scenarios. Findings show that when people evaluate competing legal accounts of the same evidence, their explanatory preferences for simplicity versus complexity are affected by whether they are required to draw causal models of the explanations.
Mapping the Use of Open Source Research in UN Human Rights Investigations
In this article, TRUE's PI Yvonne McDermott, writing with colleagues Daragh Murray and Alexa Koenig in the Journal of Human Rights Practice, provides a thorough analysis of how open source information is used in practice by UN human rights fact-finding missions, commissions of inquiry and other official human rights investigations.
Factors affecting conspiracy theory endorsement in paranoia
Co-authored by TRUE post-doctoral research associate, Alice Liefgreen, this paper tested if endorsement of items on a new Components of Conspiracy Ideation Questionnaire varied according to whether harm was described as being (a) intentional and (b) self-referential. It found that paranoia was positively associated with endorsement of items on this questionnaire overall and more paranoid individuals were more likely to endorse items describing intentional and self-referential harm.
Open Source Information’s Blind Spot: Human and Machine Bias in International Criminal Investigations
At a time when the use of digital open source information is becoming more widespread, this article warns of the cognitive and technical biases that can impact upon two key stages of an investigation: finding relevant information and analysing that information.