Adopting a cultural humility approach in international criminal investigations

The most important form of evidence in international criminal investigations is information from people. This is often obtained by interviewing people from different cultural backgrounds. Recent articles drawing attention to the role of culture in investigative interviews have recommended culture-specific guidelines. Here, we argue that rather than detailed guidelines, we need a change in mindset. One promising approach is that of ‘cultural humility’, a concept borrowed from the medical field. Based on the scientific literature and Oñati expert panels, we developed an investigative interviewer training inspired by cultural humility. We tested its effectiveness with 28 experienced investigative interviewers from different professional fields. Here, we reflect on the practitioners’ experiences and feedback on the training and propose a new way forward to improve cross-cultural investigative interviewing. Adopting a new mindset should not only promote the well-being of interviewees, but also facilitate the collection of valuable information in international criminal investigations.