International Commissions of Inquiry (COIs) have become important components of the human rights fact-finding, accountability and transitional justice architecture. The core task of COIs is to investigate international crises and construe what happened on the ground. The increasing tendency of states under scrutiny to refuse territorial access frustrates COI performance. It leaves COIs with no option but to operate from outside the state. COIs have developed various strategies to overcome the impediment of the uncooperative state, including the use of satellite imagery, conducting extraterritorial public hearings, interviewing individuals in the territory through Skype and other media as well as collecting accounts from individuals in the diaspora. This article focuses on the engagement of COIs with the diaspora. It presents diasporas as actors that may have considerable significance for COIs in a variety of ways, beyond sharing information. The article unveils the distinct roles that diasporic actors may entertain vis-a-vis international inquiries, as subjects in need of protection, information providers, and audience and mobilization forces. Looking at the COI for Eritrea, the article tests how these different roles play out in practice and how they interrelate. It thus sheds light on the capacity of COIs to make a difference extraterritorially for individuals in the diaspora, and on the capacity of diasporic actors to influence COI findings and shape follow up. The Eritrean COI experience illustrates that a purely instrumental approach towards diasporas - one which only regards diasporas as sources of information and which fails to protect extraterritorially or tap into the greater potential of diaspora mobilization - lessens COI effectivity for broader human rights and transitional justice purposes.

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网络世界中的国际调查委员会：通过厄立特里亚案例研究揭示侨民的作用

国际调查委员会 (COI) 已成为人权实况调查、问责制和过渡时期司法架构的重要组成部分。COI 的核心任务是调查国际危机并解释实地发生的事情。接受审查的国家越来越倾向于拒绝领土准入，这阻碍了 COI 的表现。它让 COI 别无选择，只能在州外运作。COI 制定了各种策略来克服不合作国家的障碍，包括使用卫星图像、进行域外公开听证会、通过 Skype 和其他媒体采访领土内的个人以及从散居国外的个人那里收集账户。本文重点关注利益相关者与侨民的互动。它将侨民作为参与者，除了共享信息之外，可能以多种方式对利益相关者具有重要意义。这篇文章揭示了海外行动者在面对国际调查时可能扮演的独特角色，如需要保护的主体、信息提供者、受众和动员力量。本文着眼于厄立特里亚的利益冲突，测试了这些不同的角色在实践中如何发挥作用以及它们如何相互关联。因此，它阐明了利益冲突对侨民个人在域外产生影响的能力，以及侨民行为者影响利益冲突调查结果和形成后续行动的能力。