A New Approach to Detecting Mass Human Rights Violations Using Satellite Imagery

Andrew Marx’s report summarizes his research in Darfur, where he tested a methodology for using free and publicly available moderate resolution satellite imagery to detect types of destruction that are consistent with mass human rights violations. This study also demonstrates how data from moderate-resolution satellites can be included in large-scale operational human rights monitoring campaigns, allowing monitoring campaigns to be more proactive, enabling them to cover larger areas more accurately, and making them more cost-effective.