Individual incidents of political violence are reported. Investigations are opened. Occasionally, charges are filed. But the connective tissue — the systematic record that maps these incidents against international legal standards and reveals patterns of conduct — is largely absent from the public domain.
Gravamen exists to build that record. We apply the frameworks of international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and human rights law to documented incidents of political violence linked to US foreign conduct — asking not only what happened, but what legal threshold it approaches or crosses.
We do not issue verdicts. We document, classify, and analyze — making the evidentiary record accessible to journalists, litigators, policymakers, and the public.
Cross-referencing public records, investigative journalism, leaked documents, social media geolocations, and witness testimony to establish incident documentation with verifiable sourcing.
Temporal analysis of commercial satellite imagery to corroborate ground events, identify site changes, and provide independent verification of reported incidents in areas with limited access.
Each documented incident is assessed against applicable international legal frameworks — identifying which articles, elements, and thresholds are implicated and at what level of confidence.
Individual incidents that fall below a legal threshold may collectively satisfy the elements of broader offenses. Gravamen tracks cumulative conduct as well as discrete events.
Every entry in the Gravamen database is sourced to primary or independently verifiable material. Confidence levels are assigned and displayed. Contested facts are flagged.
The status of each incident — whether investigated, prosecuted, dismissed, or unaddressed — is tracked alongside the underlying documentation, showing where accountability has and has not followed.
Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan. Civilian casualty patterns analyzed against IHL principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution.
IHL · LOAC · AP-IPost-2001 detention without trial, rendition to third states, and conditions of confinement assessed against the CAT and ICCPR.
CAT · ICCPR · UNSMRUS arms transfers to states actively committing documented atrocities — examining the legal thresholds of aiding and abetting under international law.
IHL · Rome Statute · ATTGravamen is built by researchers, lawyers, journalists, and analysts who believe the public deserves a rigorous, legally-grounded account of political violence. We are looking for contributors with expertise in IHL, OSINT, satellite imagery analysis, international criminal law, and regional conflict documentation.