A/HRC/17/21 creation, organization and management of archives as a means to guarantee the right to the truth. 7. As an introduction to the discussion, it was noted that both governmental and nongovernmental archives are relevant to the right to truth, the right to justice, the right to reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence, as provided for in the Updated principles. Governments emerging from a period of repression often have an archival deficit. There may be acceptable laws on archives but no means of enforcing them and an archival institution may have no power and no knowledge of or experience with international standard practices. However, the records of the repressive regimes require strong professional management. III. Preservation of and access to archives for the right to the truth 8. The seminar participants discussed the importance and challenges of the preservation of and access to archives, referring first to initiatives undertaken by the International Council on Archives (ICA) that have been carried out since 1993, including the publication of an ICA/United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report on the management of the archives of security services of former repressive regimes. Both the Updated principles and the ICA/UNESCO report demand that States adopt measures for the preservation of archives that contain information important for human rights. In various countries of Eastern Europe, the records of the State security services were utilized for the purposes of lustration. Records should not be destroyed or updated until such a time after the end of the repressive regime when their importance can be reviewed in accordance with archival principles. 9. Regarding who will preserve the records during a transitional period, the Updated principles state that in a transition, measures should be taken to place each archive centre under the responsibility of a specially designated office (principle 18). In countries where national archives are weak or the public does not have confidence in them, it may be necessary to establish transitional records centres, where the entire archives of a repressive entity are preserved and there is accountability for the continuous chain of custody of those archives. However, the permanent solution should be custody by the national archives. In Guatemala, for example, the police archives are in the custody of a special archival unit that reports to the national archives. In the initial transition phase there is relatively high capacity for mobilization of political and financial resources for the transitional archives centres, but over time there can be loss of support. In addition, if the transitional centres are not professionally managed by archivists, the chain of custody of the records can be lost and this can lead to the loss of acceptability of the records as evidence by courts and the loss of credibility in the eyes of the public. 10. During a State’s transition process, rules on access to archives must be clarified. Archives play an important role in the prosecution of perpetrators, and both prosecutors and human rights defenders must have access to them. Archives were used in Argentina, Guatemala and Spain for prosecutions, while in Chile and other countries archives were important for truth commissions. Access is also needed for persons seeking rehabilitation. In Latvia, for example, information in the national archives was used to restore the names and personal information on large numbers of people. However, legislation and regulations to facilitate access to archives are lacking or inadequate in many countries. 11. States need access to archives in other countries to prosecute human rights violators. A non-governmental organization (NGO) in the United States of America has used the federal Freedom of Information Act to obtain copies of records for truth commissions in El 4