The CDHM welcomed Romain Ledauphin in his capacity as an active executive member of the Archives and Human Rights Section of the International Council on Archives for a seminar on April 11, 2025. Open-ended discussion with CDHM affiliates touched on a number of wide-ranging topics, including understanding a broader definition of 'human rights archives', the vulnerability of truth and reconciliation mechanism records and their relationship to state national archives, as well as the goal of the project in question  – which is to not only locate these records but also figure out how to develop structures to access them. You can find the abstract of this talk and further information about the speaker below: 

Since the 1970s, more than a hundred truth and reconciliation mechanisms have have been set up to uncover and reveal past wrongdoing by governments or non-state actors, in the hope of resolving past conflicts. These mechanisms are an important and practical aspect of transitional justice and a form of official truth-seeking and reconciliation exercise.

Politically charged, their work often concludes with a final report which may sometimes be made available to the public. Rooted in the moment of their drafting and subject to interpretation, these reports are sometimes the only trace left by these temporary bodies. However, archives are crucial sources used to draw up these reports are often neglected and inaccessible to the public to conduct its own analysis and draw its own conclusions.

The documents and archives produced and collected by these mechanisms are not only important for the right to the truth and the consolidation of democracy after repressive regimes or internal armed conflicts, but also to support other transitional justice mechanisms, including reparations, trials and education.
Deeply concerned by the situation of the archives of these mechanisms and the uncertainty as to the fate and use of the documentary heritage left by these bodies, the Archives and Human Rights Section of the International Council on Archives and Swisspeace are currently collecting information related to the fate of the archives of those temporary bodies. The aim of the project is to create a public database communicating the data collected via an online platform in order to advocate for good practice in records and archives management for past and future truth and reconciliation mechanisms.

Romain Ledauphin is an archivist at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). He is interested in the role of archives in transitional justice processes, and in particular issues of access to archives. He has acquired practical knowledge in the field of information and archives management at the United Nations Secretariat (2010-2012); the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (2012-2014); the International Residual Mechanism for the Criminal Tribunals (2014-2017); the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (2017-2018); the Swisspeace Foundation (2018-2020); the United Nations team investigating the crimes of Dae'sh in Iraq (2020-2022). Since then he has been a consultant and an active executive member of the Archives and Human Rights Section of the Council on Archives.