are impartial. When it has been decided that the threshold is reached with respect to a responsible individual, one staff member who has not been involved in the collection or analysis of the evidence serves as “devil’s advocate” and challenges the findings, putting forth counter arguments and evidence to the extent that they exist. By introducing these or similar checks, the investigative body will be more likely to achieve results that are legally and factually impartial. Additional considerations on whom to investigate • A focus on international crimes tends to result in findings of responsibility primarily among the security forces. By concentrating also on serious human rights violations, other key figures bearing responsibility, including senior civilian leaders, may be held to account. • Equally, civilian leadership (State and de facto authorities) is to be investigated also for international humanitarian law and international criminal law violations where command or superior responsibility is at issue. • Consider also persons who facilitate violations from abroad, e.g., diaspora financing armed groups or inciting genocide, providers of weapons and intelligence used for violations, foreign officials engaged in refoulement or extraordinary rendition, etc. Building dossiers on individuals at any level is time-consuming work, but it tends to take comparatively more time as one moves up the hierarchy. The converse may be true, however, for those implicated at the highest levels of government and the military: senior leaders are more likely to make public appearances and pronouncements, which can facilitate the collection of information on their knowledge of events. (b) Mapping and recording actors and entities A step fundamental to any process of identifying responsible individuals is generating an “actor map”, often a visual or electronic representation of key actors and their roles, as well as the relationships between them.87 Actor maps include not only individuals, but also State institutions and entities, armed groups where relevant, and the key individuals involved in or leading them. They are often accompanied by spreadsheets containing detailed information as well as organization charts depicting hierarchies within an entity (see Annex II for a non-prescriptive example of See OHCHR Manual on Human Rights Monitoring, chapter on “Analysis”. 87 46 ATTRIBUTING INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY