15 October 2026
Recent advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI) have enabled new forms of memorialisation, testimony preservation and digital representation of the dead.
While AI offers opportunities to improve access to testimony, strengthen archival work and support memorialisation efforts, it also introduces significant ethical, legal and political risks – from the risk of reinforcing unequal recognition among victims and communities, to the possibility that commercial interests and profit motives may shape how historical events are recorded, accessed and remembered.
For victims and survivors of serious human rights violations, there is a real concern that developments in AI could co-opt victims’ voices and entrench structural inequality. Ultimately, it comes down to:
- How are testimony and victims represented?
- Who has control over these representations?
- How can consent be meaningfully ensured?
- How can the integrity of the historical record be protected?
These questions are particularly urgent for memorialisation in transitional justice (TJ) contexts, where testimony and historical representation are closely tied to truth-seeking, accountability, recognition and guarantees of non-recurrence.
As AI technologies develop rapidly and institutions increasingly consider their adoption, decisions are being made without adequate guidance tailored to these sensitive contexts. This raises significant concerns about the integrity of testimony, the historical record and the potential consequences for victims, survivors and affected communities.
The report argues that AI should support the objectives of memorialisation—truth, dignity, recognition and non-recurrence—rather than reshape them. It examines where AI may strengthen memorialisation, where it may undermine it, and under what conditions its use may be justified.
The report proposes practical recommendations and a decision-making framework to help organisations and institutions determine when, how and under what conditions AI can be used safely and responsibly in ways that support, rather than undermine, truth, accountability, remembrance and non-recurrence.
Beyond these practical recommendations, the report also identifies a need for continued work to develop principles and guidance for the safe and responsible use of AI across transitional justice, including memorialisation. Such work should take a multidisciplinary approach and involve practitioners, institutions, victims and survivor groups, and other relevant actors.
The report draws on recent scholarship on AI, memory, ethics and governance, including previous Impunity Watch research on AI and TJ as well as discussions from an international Policy Hub jointly organised by Impunity Watch and the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence in Berlin in March 2026.
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