Methodology

Purpose

This is a public archive of alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, and serious violations of international law from the second Trump administration (January 20, 2025 onward). It is a project of the Lilac Party.

It is not a news feed. Every entry has an incident date, an update date, a legal posture label, and a source trail you can check yourself.

Legal Disclaimer

This archive documents allegations, not adjudicated findings. The title is editorial framing — it is not a blanket legal conclusion that every record here constitutes an adjudicated war crime.

No person named in this archive has been convicted of any war crime by any tribunal. When we use terms like "war crime" or "crime against humanity," we are drawing on analysis from recognized authorities — Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Lawfare, Just Security, and others — and citing specific provisions of international law. That is credible legal analysis, not a verdict.

Everything here comes from public reporting, court filings, government records, and published legal analyses. Every incident page has source citations you can check.

Each incident page separates:

• reported facts from cited public sources
• official acts acknowledged by the government
• claims made in litigation or public advocacy
• judicial findings where a court order or ruling is cited
• the publication's own severity assessment

If a page does not cite a ruling or operative official record for a legal conclusion, readers should treat legal terms on the site as documented analysis or allegation, not as a final adjudication.

What Gets In

Every incident has to clear these bars:

• Publicly sourceable: backed by reporting, public filings, government records, or other verifiable material
• Dateable: tied to a specific date or clearly documented time period
• Classifiable: fits the archive's category, severity, and legal-posture system
• Explainable: can be described plainly without overstating what the record supports
• Auditable: comes with a source trail you can inspect

We do not publish anonymous tips, protected identities, or unpublished notes from our research process.

Sources

Where possible, incident pages separate references into two groups:

• Source documents: court orders, filings, proclamations, executive actions — the primary material
• Linked reporting: journalism, analysis, and other public context

We prefer primary documents when they exist. When only reporting is available, the page says so.

Data Exports

The archive publishes machine-readable data so you can audit, cite, or build on it without scraping HTML.

• /archive.json — full structured archive
• /archive.csv — tabular export of the same data
• incident/[slug].json — structured record for a single incident
• /updates.json — the update ledger

These exports contain only what is already visible on the public site. No private notes, unpublished drafts, or source-protection data.

Classification Rules

Severity

Severity is our editorial assessment of how grave the rights and rule-of-law risk is. It is not a criminal charge or tribunal judgment.

• Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern: unusually grave questions involving unlawful detention, refoulement, executive defiance, or severe due-process breakdowns
• Serious Rights Violation: serious constitutional, statutory, or international-law concerns supported by strong public evidence
• Major Abuse of Power: substantial institutional abuse, dismantlement, or coercive misuse of public authority
• Significant Democratic Concern: serious democratic-accountability or rule-of-law harms that may not yet rise to the levels above

Legal Posture

Every incident page also carries a posture label:

• Reported record: the page relies on reporting or public records, without citing a final judicial finding on the core legal question
• Active litigation: courts are actively considering legality, remedy, or compliance issues tied to the incident
• Judicial finding: the page cites a court ruling or operative order directly bearing on the contested conduct
• Official executive action: the act itself is publicly acknowledged by the government, even if the legal critique remains contested

Updates

We do not silently rewrite entries. When new sources appear, postures change, or meaningful corrections are needed, they show up in the incident's update log.

Minor copyedits may not get their own update item. Anything that changes the facts, sources, or legal framing will.

See Updates for the full log.

Limits

This site is not:

• a court
• a criminal indictment
• legal advice
• a substitute for a full investigative file
• a secure channel for sensitive source contact

What Is Missing

This archive is incomplete. A missing incident does not mean it did not happen or did not matter. It may mean:

• the public sources are not yet strong enough to meet our bar
• the incident has not been converted from our research notes into a publishable record
• we do not yet have a good category or collection structure for it
• publishing it would require source-sensitive material we cannot make public

If you have information, see Source Safety. We do not currently offer SecureDrop or an equivalent anonymous submission system.