E-discovery solution aids war crimes conviction

ZyLab has reported that its e-discovery and information management technology has been used by the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (UNAKRT/ECCC), and played a role in the first conviction of a major Khmer Rouge figure.

ZyLAB reports that UNAKRT/ECCC’s application of its eDiscovery & Production system helped to identify, review and produce evidence that helped lead to the July 26 verdict. The solution is modeled after one ZyLAB provided for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and its prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic. That previous experience led to collaboration between ZyLAB and U.N. legal and information management professionals to set up a standard for e-discovery and e-disclosure in future war crime tribunals, according to a ZyLAB press release.

Gonzalo de Cesare, former records manager for several U.N. war crimes tribunals, says, “During the Slobodan Milosevic trial, we found ZyLAB to be the ideal technical partner to implement our vision for bringing justice, managing millions of documents and complying with the stringent rules of international law. The ZyLAB solution--including collection, text mining of unstructured data, analysis and Web-based legal review for the prosecution, defense and the court--became the standard for all U.N. war crime tribunals including those against the Khmer Rouge leaders.”

Johannes C. Scholtes, chief strategy officer at ZyLAB, says, “The United Nations has selected our technology for the world’s war crimes tribunals based on its robust and user-friendly capabilities for accessing and reviewing vast amounts of information ... These trials are the most complex in the world because they are made up of hundreds of participants speaking dozens of different languages and with varying levels of tech savvy. ZyLAB’s technology helps break down the communication and collaboration barriers to ensure a fair trial takes place.”