A/HRC/17/21 Salvador, Guatemala and Peru and for prosecutions in Chile, Peru, and Spain. To enable the use of these records, the archives must be protected in third countries, the existence of the archives must be known, and inventories of the archives must exist. Institutions in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay are developing inventories of documents important for human rights. The increasing use of the Internet is also helping people to become aware of archives and use them in an optimum way. 12. The seminar participants, in that respect, discussed the issue of gaining access to information. It was noted with regard, in particular, to military and police records, that the existence of freedom of information laws does not guarantee access to such records. One solution suggested was, for example, the use of a group of experts to create an inventory of what records exist. It was also suggested that a court could appoint a “special master” to examine records to determine what exists and to create basic finding aids. 13. The fragility of the processes of preservation and access to archives in post-conflict States was also mentioned. In some Latin American countries a change of Government has resulted in problems with access to archives. In Guatemala, civil society needs to support an institutional process for access to police and military records that will persist even if the Government changes. There are also challenges in that country associated with the process of declassifying military records, which is being undertaken by a committee of Peace Archives staff members, civilians and armed forces personnel. The military selected only 11,000 documents for review by the committee. 14. Concerning the appropriate time period after which Government records should be declassified and available, it was noted, as an example, that the European Commission recommends a 30-year period as the maximum for keeping records classified. While there should be a clear date for declassification, one standard cannot be applied to all countries. For example, in transitional situations, it is important to access records of the past regime very rapidly, particularly if they document any type of human rights violation. 15. With regard to non-governmental records that must be preserved, those of NGOs, political parties directly linked to repressive regimes, and persons and groups who were in exile were emphasized. The records of regional and international intergovernmental organizations which have become particularly important in the post-World War II period deserve the same attention and were identified as records that must also be preserved. 16. One suggestion was made regarding the establishment of an international database of documents important for human rights prosecutions which could be created and made available to prosecutors, with a clear recognition of the complexity of inter-State use of documents due to the use of different rules of evidence in different States. 17. With regard to the issue of the protection of archives through transfer to third countries, it was suggested that there is a possibility of placing records in an institution that is not affiliated with the State or with an international institution if there is a lack of public confidence in State archives. One example is that of Chile, where private archives are centralized in the documentation centre. Other examples are the records of the Guatemala and El Salvador truth commissions housed in the United Nations archives in New York pursuant to agreements with the Governments. Internationally, there is a continuing need to find a space to safeguard archives in two situations: first, when a conflict is taking place or appears imminent, and records may be destroyed; second, where records will likely be destroyed by environmental problems, such as mould, vermin or natural disasters. 18. In relation to the question about the reliability of the information in archives, particularly those of the police, and the due process guarantees for the persons named in them, such as during lustration processes, a distinction between the authenticity of a document and the veracity of a document has to be made, given that State security services documents are filled with information that could be false, but they are authentic documents. 5