A/HRC/12/19 page 18 key to combating impunity, to vetting officials, to discovering truth, and to providing reparations. Archivists can advise policymakers on the importance and characteristics of good access laws. 66. The records of a transitional justice institution must be managed while the institution is active and secured in an archive when the institution completes its work. The records of a truth commission, with a few exceptions, are national records of the Government, as are records of vetting panels and reparation bodies; they need to be preserved in national archives. Records of temporary courts are either governmental or United Nations property and need to be preserved in the respective archives. 67. With regard to witness protection, the overarching objective is also to combat impunity. In this regard, there is a 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. 68. At the same time, while the international tribunals have made strong efforts to design human rights-based witness protection programmes, there is a need to strengthen the effective provision by the international community of financial, technical and political support necessary to develop programmes at the national level. This requires relevant human rights bodies to encourage, facilitate and support States in developing independent, trustworthy and strong witness protection mechanisms at national level. 69. A system of witness protection programme may be considered which, though independent from State mechanisms, would be universally trusted. Such a system could be funded by the State, but not closely controlled by the machinery of State organs. In particular, witness protection mechanisms in such circumstances should not be associated with State agencies such as the police, security agencies and the military. In many cases, these agencies had political and ideological allegiances to the accused implicated in the proceedings, and the capacity to influence the prosecution. 70. Witness protection programmes should also be designed to protect individuals who are cooperating with other accountability mechanisms, include those of a quasi- and non-judicial nature, such as human rights commissions and truth and reconciliation commissions. 71. In recent years, international and regional intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Council of Europe, the European Police Office-Europol and the European Commission, have carried out significant work in the area of inter-State agreements on relocation of witnesses involved in transnational organized crimes. Similarly, in order to strengthen international cooperation in witness protection in human rights trials, States with established witness protection programmes should be encouraged to formalize agreements between them, and set a framework for the relocation of witnesses to their territories, if required. -----