A/HRC/RES/12/12 page 4 protection, promotion and implementation of this right, including practices regarding the protection of witnesses and the preservation and management of archives; 6. Also encourages States to design programmes and other measures to protect witnesses and individuals who cooperate with judicial bodies and mechanisms of a quasi-judicial or non-judicial nature, such as human rights commissions and truth commissions; 7. Welcomes the fact that 81 States have signed and 13 States have ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, and encourages all States that have not yet signed, ratified or acceded to the Convention to consider doing so, in order to allow its entry into force as soon as possible; 8. Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a report, to be presented to the Council at its fifteenth session, on the basis of information, including from States, on programmes and other measures for the protection of witnesses implemented within the framework of criminal procedures related to gross violations of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian law, with a view to determine the need to develop common standards and promote best practices that would serve as guidelines to States in protecting witnesses and others concerned with providing cooperation in trials for gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law; 9. Invites the Office of the High Commissioner to convene, within existing resources, a seminar, taking into account different experiences on the importance of the creation, organization and management of public systems of archives as a means to guarantee the right to the truth, with a view to study the need for guidelines on this issue, and also requests the Office to report on the outcome of the consultation, in the form of a summary of discussions on the above-mentioned issue, to the Council at its seventeenth session; 10. Invites special rapporteurs and other mechanisms of the Council, in the framework of their mandates, to take into account, as appropriate, the issue of the right to the truth; 11. Decides to consider this matter at its fifteenth session under the same agenda item, or at the corresponding session in conformity with its annual programme of work. 30th meeting 1 October 2009 [Adopted without a vote.]