It is with great sadness that we have learned of the death of the French magistrate, Louis Joinet, a dedicated human rights defender. He was, in 1997, the author of a groundbreaking report to the UN Commission on Human Rights on how to combat the impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations. In this document he emphasized the importance of archives for the right to know, the right to justice and the right to reparation. Five of his 42 “general principles” (known as the Joinet Principles) concern preservation of and access to archives.Louis Joinet supported the ICA Working Group on Archives and Human Rights from its very beginning and introduced us to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. We owe him a lot.
HUMAN RIGHTS WORKING GROUP (ICA HRWG)