Documentation efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
In this new episode of the mini-series on documentation practices, we turn to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Together with Dr. Valérie Arnould, Legal and Policy Advisor on transitional justice with the international NGO Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF), we explore the challenges and possibilities of documenting human rights violations in a country marked by protracted violence, impunity, and ongoing transitional justice initiatives.
Valérie reflects on ASF’s multi-layered documentation practices, emphasizing that documentation forms the foundation of transitional justice. She explains that its value extends far beyond supporting trials or reparations mechanisms such as the relatively new Congolese National Reparations Fund (FONAREV). It also serves to counter misinformation, resist denial, and make visible under-recognised forms of victimisation—such as enforced disappearances.
The key question in our work is how do you engage in documentation that is truly meaningful to the victims, and in which they can have a direct stake in shaping the record of violations.
Furthermore, Valérie sheds light on the practical and ethical dilemmas of documenting in an ongoing conflict. Where you “need to develop a documentation strategy, accepting that it will be imperfect.” While open-source intelligence (OSINT) is often presented as the cutting edge of innovation in human rights monitoring, Valérie warns that in the DRC such tools can risk detaching documentation from the lived realities of victims, particularly given the limited accessibility of digital spaces.
She stresses that innovation should not only be about digital methodologies, but also about rethinking “documentation and archives as not being just about data collection and about information, but also about lived experiences and storytelling.” Community-based practices such as local storytelling, dialogue processes, or the preservation of atrocity sites and mass graves already exist, yet remain under-supported by traditional human rights organisations.
Bio
Dr. Valérie Arnould is Legal and Policy Advisor on transitional justice with the international NGO Avocats Sans Frontières. She has more than 15 years of experience working on transitional justice as an academic researcher, policy researcher and practitioner, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. She works at the intersection of political science and international law, with a focus on conflict-affected countries. She is currently also an Affiliated Senior Researcher with the Leuven Institute of Criminology at the University of Leuven and a Senior Associate Fellow with the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations. She is also the editor-in-chief of the Leuven Transitional Justice Blog. She holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College London and degrees in international relations, international law and war studies from King’s College London and the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Valérie Arnould, ©ASF
