A/HRC/30/42 Annex [English only] Set of general recommendations for truth commissions and archives Introduction 1. Many post-authoritarian and post-conflict societies are faced with enormous challenges in the preservation and disposition of records containing information on gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law. In many cases, secrecy, national security concerns, and poor archival practice stand in the way of guaranteeing the right to know the truth. 2. Archivists have, over time, developed sophisticated technical expertise and knowledge on all relevant issues regarding archives, including preservation, accessibility, and management. However, there is a striking gap between technical archival expertise and practice. Policies and practices that fall short of international standards risk the loss of records containing an important part of a society’s heritage and hence hamper the possibility of accessing documentary evidence and support for efforts to achieve truth and justice. 3. Indeed, archives are relevant and can make significant contributions to each of the pillars of transitional justice, not merely truth and justice. At the same time, transitional justice measures can contribute to a country’s archival system. Beyond the fact that transitional justice measures generate records themselves, truth commissions, trials, reparations programs and other transitional justice initiatives can contribute to improving archival practice both by the way they implement relevant standards with respect to their own documents, and because some of them, particularly truth commissions, are in a good position to make comments and recommendations about archival reform in general. 4. That potential, however, has not been consistently realized. Even truth commissions, both in post-authoritarian and post-conflict settings, manifest a significant gap between expertise and actual practice. There is little consistency in the disposition of truth commission archives, in the regimes that govern subsequent access to them, and in the recommendations that truth commissions make concerning archival systems. 5. In the conviction that these gaps need to be addressed, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence in his 2013 report to UN Human Rights Council on truth commissions (A/HRC/24/42) “calls for the development of international standards on archiving” for truth commissions. What follows is intended to contribute to the development of such standards. Part I contains recommendations for truth commissions pertaining to their own operations and the disposition of their archives, and Part II comprises recommendations that truth commissions can make regarding the establishment of national archival policies concerning 27