Strategic Themes and Partnerships | Global

The right tools in the right hands

PeaceTech Lab(PTL) is our global nonprofit partner. Their mission is to reduce violent conflict around the world using technology, media, and data. Their mantra is "the right tools in the right hands to end violence and build peace."

Our three-year partnership with PTL commenced in January 2020 and focuses on peacebuilding. In addition to pro bono legal advice and fundraising, our people use their professional expertise to support PTL on projects which tackle violence, racial injustice and hate speech. 

Together, we have worked on:

• COVID-19 violence tracker project.

We conducted global research to track, categorize, and visualize the violence the world is experiencing as a result of the global pandemic to support peacekeepers, nonprofits and policymakers. Through our contributions, PTL identified an increase in: attacks on healthcare workers worldwide; hate speech and hate crime incidents against Asian communities; and rate of homicides in the U.S. PeaceTech Lab is now using this volunteer data to automate real-time media collection.

Watch the two minute film on the making of the COVID-19 violence tracker.

• Hate speech pro bono project

70+ lawyers contributed to our special report "The Global Regulation of Online Hate: A Survey of Applicable Laws" to analyze the extent to which laws govern online hate speech under international law and specifically under the lens of 23 jurisdictions. The report addressed the growing incidents of hate crime and online abuse through the development of comprehensive analysis. In phase two of the project, the report will be developed into an interactive user-friendly guide.

Findings are to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council by the UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities, who is carefully evaluating international approaches to the regulation of hate speech to reduce violence.

Read the report.

• Road to Equal Justice workshops

We supported PTL to deliver their first U.S.-program. The Road to Equal Justice aims to provide media, data, and technology training to community organizations and nonprofits working on matters of racial justice with a particular focus on criminal justice; housing and economic justice; and voting rights. We are providing skills-based support to PTL, including assistance with planning and design of the workshops, and provision of speakers and funding.

The program commenced with organizations tackling racial justice issues in Baltimore and social justice issues in Denver. The program will be on the road to New Orleans in April, Boston in May, and Miami in June 2021, with plans to host 12 additional programs in cities across the U.S.