Alexa Koenig, PhD, JD, is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Center (winner of the 2015 MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions), director of the center’s Technology and Human Rights program, and a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches classes on human rights and international criminal law with a particular focus on the impact of emerging technologies on human rights practice. She co-founded the Human Rights Center Investigations Lab, which trains students and professionals to use social media and other digital content to strengthen human rights advocacy and accountability. Alexa is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, co-chair of the Technology Advisory Board of the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, co-chair of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Law Committee’s Technology and Human Rights working group, a member of the University of California’s Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence (for which she co-chairs the Human Resources subcommittee), an inaugural member of the Technology Advisory Board for the Innovation Lab at Human Rights First, and a member of the board of advisors for Mnemonic/the Syrian Archive. Alexa has been honored with several awards for her work, including the United Nations Association-SF’s Global Human Rights Award, UC Berkeley’s Mark Bingham Award for Excellence, 2020 Woman Inspiring Change by Harvard Law School, the Eleanor Swift Award for Public Service, the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Teaching Excellence Award, and diverse grants, including support from the National Science Foundation and numerous private foundations. She directed development of and served on the coordinating committee of the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. She has conducted trainings on online open source investigations for the Institute for International Criminal Investigations, UC Berkeley’s Advanced Media Institute, and others. Her research and commentary have appeared in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, US News and World Report, and elsewhere.
ALEXA KOENIG’S RECENT BOOKS INCLUDE
- Digital Witness: Using Open Source Methods for Human Rights Investigations, Advocacy and Accountability, with Sam Dubberley and Daragh Murray (Oxford University Press, 2019)
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Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War Criminals from Nuremberg to the War on Terror, with Eric Stover and Victor Peskin (UC Press, 2016)
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Extreme Punishment: Comparative Studies in Detention, Incarceration and Solitary Confinement, editor with Keramet Reiter (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015)
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The Guantánamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of U.S. Detention and Interrogation Practices, contributor with Eric Stover, Laurel Fletcher, and Stephen Smith Cody (UC Press, 2009). Additional research and commentary have appeared in such diverse outlets as the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, US News and World Reports, and elsewhere.
RECENT MEDIA APPEARANCES
- Berkeley students investigate war crimes using social media, UC Berkeley News
- Digital Detectives, explores how open source investigations have sparked a revolution in journalism; NHK World, April 2020
- Fake news v fact: The battle for truth, The Economist, February 2019
- PBS NewsHour(link is external), discussing the launch of the Human Rights Investigations Lab, February 2017
- “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War Criminals from Nuremberg to the War on Terror,” ALOUD Podcast Series, Jan. 17, 2017
- UC Berkeley students work to authenticate photos, videos from conflict zones, ABC 7 News, July 13, 2017.
Education
J.D., University of San Francisco School of Law
Ph.D., UC Berkeley
M.A., UC Berkeley
Alexa Koenig is teaching the following course in Spring 2023:
• 262.91 sec. 001 - The Killing of Jamal Khashoggi and the Search for Justice
Courses During Other Semesters
| Semester | Course Num | Course Title |  Teaching Evaluations | Fall 2022 | 262.68 sec. 001 | Human Rights and War Crimes Investigations | View Teaching Evaluation |
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Timely Business-Related Offerings Among Berkeley Law’s Deep Reservoir of New Courses
A whopping 18 courses are available to Berkeley Law students for the first time this semester, including 3 focused on emerging areas in the corporate sector.
Rare Feat: Berkeley Law Students Present Their Research at Major International Forum
Selected to discuss their work at the recent event in Miami, where the vast majority of presenters were faculty scholars, “is a big deal,” says Professor Katerina Linos.
A Legacy of Truth: Eric Stover’s Four Decades of Investigating the Forcibly Disappeared
The faculty director of Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center continues to help people worldwide search for an answer to the agonizing question, Where is my child?
What Does the Post-Roe Future Look Like?
Alexa Koenig, executive director of Berkeley’s Human Rights Center and a lecturer at the law and journalism schools along with three other Berkeley experts discuss the consequences of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and what it reveals about the changing nature of the court, and what lawmakers are likely to do next.
A Life in Limbo: After Fleeing Afghanistan, Judge Basira Qazizada Finds a Stopgap Oasis in Berkeley
Now a visiting scholar with Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center, Qazizada is part of a unique program that brings threatened Afghan scholars to the Bay Area.
Alexa Koenig Leads U.C. Berkeley’s Human Rights Center
Human Rights Center Executive Director Alexa Koenig discusses the growing use of open source intelligence (OSINT) as a way to document international atrocities and bolster human rights prosecutions.
The US Has A Plan To Document Human Rights Violations In Ukraine
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, says open source information can be invaluable at the preliminary investigation stage, as you’re planning either humanitarian relief or to conduct a legal investigation
Livestreamed carnage: Tech’s hard lessons from mass killings
Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center, says there’s been a shift in how tech companies are responding to events such as the Buffalo shooting
The online investigators tracking alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, appears on 60 Minutes to discuss open source investigations and says we are headed into an entirely new era of human rights investigations, and war crimes investigations, more generally
Four House committee chairs ask Big Tech to archive evidence of war crimes in Ukraine
Four high-ranking congressional Democrats sent formal requests to the CEOs of YouTube, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook’s parent company, Meta, on Thursday, asking them to archive content that could be used as evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine and citing a 2021 report from the Human Rights Center
Detailed ‘open source’ news investigations are catching on
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, discusses the increase in news using open source investigation techniques
Watching from space, satellites collect evidence of war crimes
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, discusses the use of satellite imagery to capture war crimes evidence
‘You’re not going to get away with it’: Ukraine unveils first war crimes charges amid 8,000 investigations
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, says it could take years to wade through all the war crimes evidence in Ukraine, it’s critically important to process it as soon as possible, to point investigators to the most important cases – and those that could lead to speedy prosecutions
Can technology bring Vladimir Putin to justice?
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, says that the challenge on convicting war crimes through social media images will be on the admissibility, on convincing judges this is something they should be allowing or heavily weighing
The Lawfare Podcast: Bringing Evidence of War Crimes From Twitter to the Hague
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, appears on the Lawfare Podcast for an in-depth interview examining the history of using social media for international criminal cases and Berkeley/the HRC’s role in developing the Berkeley Protocol
Could social media hold evidence of alleged Russian war crimes?
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, explains the benefits and challenges of a large amount of social media evidence
From war crime to conviction — what it will take to bring the Bucha killers to justice
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, discusses the increase in major warrants of arrest coming forward on the basis open source investigations and social media evidence
War Crimes Tribunals in the Digital Age
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, discusses the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations and the long collaborative process of formalizing OSINT to be admissible in international courts.
Digital detectives scour Ukraine social media for evidence of Russian war crimes
Alexa Koenig, Executive Director of the Human Rights Center, weighs in on the big role social media platforms have to play as activists, journalists, researchers and volunteers race to dig up damning photos and videos of Russia’s conduct in Ukraine
New Project Tracking Campaign to Curtail Reproductive Rights Showcases Cross-Campus Alliance
A new radio show about Texas’ abortion law strengthens the ties between the Human Rights Center and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.