Sarah Zarmsky

Biography

Sarah Zarmsky is a PhD Candidate and Assistant Lecturer with the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex interested in the intersections between international law, human rights, and new and emerging technologies. She is a recipient of the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 Modern Law Review Scholarships. From January to May 2023, she was a Visiting Scholar at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law, where she was heavily involved with the development of a guide for judges and fact-finders on evaluating open source evidence at international courts and human rights bodies. Her PhD research focuses on accountability for digital harms under international criminal law, and is supervised by Professor Carla Ferstman and Dr Daragh Murray. Sarahs work has been published in outlets such as the Journal of International Criminal Justice and presented at multiple conferences and events, including the 2022 ABILA International Law Weekend, where she was recognized as an Emerging Voice in the field of international law. Her research has been cited in multiple books and journal articles, including by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and she has been interviewed for multiple major media outlets, including Wired Magazine and Reuters. Sarah has also advised platforms such as Meta on content moderation policies, and liaised with non-governmental organisations on the development of protocols for emerging issues related to international law in a digital age, such as for the use of audio evidence in ICL trials or online investigations of conflict-related sexual violence. Prior to starting her PhD, Sarah received her LLM in Public International Law from Leiden University in The Netherlands. Sarah has interned with the International Criminal Court, the International Bar Association (ICC & ICL Programme Office and the Legal Policy and Research Unit), and the International Court of Justice. She is also trained in conducting open source investigations, and has assisted with open source research, trainings, and writing reports for multiple organisations. At the University of Essex, she has been involved with the Digital Verification Unit and previously served as a Research Officer for the Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project. She was also a Research Assistant for the UKRI-funded project on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Rights at Queen Mary University of London. In addition, Sarah is Deputy Managing Editor of the international legal blog Opinio Juris. In February 2023, she convened the well-received Symposium on Fairness, Equality and Diversity in Open Source Investigations with Opinio Juris, and is a regular organiser of its Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law. Selected publications: Journal articles: 'Is International Criminal Law Ready to Accommodate Online Harm? Challenges and Opportunities' (Journal of International Criminal Justice, 9 May 2024) Why Seeing Should Not Always Be Believing: Considerations Regarding the Use of Digital Reconstruction Technology in International Law (Journal of International Criminal Justice, Special Issue on New Technologies and the Investigation of International Crimes, 3 July 2021) Book chapters: Rewrite of the Al Hassan Arrest Warrant Decision with Dr Emma Irving in Feminist Judgments and the ICC (Cambridge University Press, available on SSRN, forthcoming 2024) Reports and Guides: 'Scenario 31: Sharing degrading content' (Cyberlaw Toolkit, September 2024) 'Evaluating digital open source imagery: A guide for judges and fact-finders' with Professor Basak Çali, Joseph Finnerty, Lindsay Freeman, Dr Alexa Koenig, Libby McAvoy, Dr Daragh Murray, Jana Sadler-Forster, and Raquel Vazquez Llorente (May 2024) Blog posts: 'Open-source imagery is transforming investigations of international crimes but how do judges know if its real?' (with Professor Yvonne McDermott and Dr Alexa Koenig, The Conversation, 11 September 2024) 'ICLs Potential to Address Online Harms in Ukraine, Palestine, and Beyond' (Opinio Juris, Symposium on Contemporary International Criminal Law After Critique, 10 September 2024) 'Out in the Open: Fair Trial Rights and Open Source Evidence at the ICC' (with Judy Mionki, Opinio Juris, Symposium on Fairness, Equality, and Diversity in Open Source Investigations, 10 February 2023) 'Symposium on Fairness, Equality, and Diversity in Open Source Investigations: An Introduction', (Opinio Juris, Symposium on Fairness, Equality, and Diversity in Open Source Investigations, 6 February 2023) Wizards, Wands, and Wars: Applying General Principles of IHL to the Wizarding Wars of Harry Potter (Opinio Juris, Second Annual Symposium on International Law and Pop Culture, 24 October 2022) 'Westworld and Human Rights' (Opinio Juris, 29 October 2021) Digital Evidence & The Black Lives Matter Movement (Opinio Juris, 12 June 2020) Media: 'War Crimes Prosecutions Enter a New Digital Age' (quoted in Wired Magazine, 26 June 2024) 'In Conversation With Sarah Zarmsky: Accountability for Digital Harm Under International Criminal Law' (Essex Law Blog, 13 July 2023) 'Virtual Legal Reality with Sarah Zarmsky, Brittan Heller and Shirin Anlen' (Asymmetrical Haircuts International Justice Podcast, 17 March 2023)

Qualifications

• LLM, Public International Law Leiden University (2020)

• BA, Psychology with minors in Legal Studies and French Brandeis University (2018)

• Associate Fellow (D1) Higher Education Academy (2024)

Thesis