mise final_848 890 24.12.2002 16:21 Page 890 Reflections on the scientific documentation of human rights violations To sum up, in every process involving scientific documentation of human rights violations, above and beyond the appropriate technical procedures the needs and wishes of the victims’ families ought to be soberly and respectfully considered and never regarded as an afterthought. Conclusions and recommendations The habitual – and in our view, mistaken – procedure often followed is to open a grave first and conduct the rest of the investigation afterwards. We propose the following general procedures for investigation, which have proved to be the most effective in our experience in over twenty countries. In cases that require exhumation, the investigation should be organized in three phases, which are closely interrelated and should preferably be carried out in the following order: • prior to the exhumation, an investigation of written and oral sources to reconstruct the case history and elaborate a working hypothesis; • fieldwork, which includes the retrieval of the body and associated evidence, whether from the discovery site or from a regular grave; • laboratory work for the corresponding analysis of remains and other physical evidence. It may not always be possible or desirable to follow this order, and the phases may overlap with each other. When bodies are discovered accidentally, for example, the second phase prompts the investigation, so the historical investigation can only follow. In human rights cases in particular, it is often assumed that the medical expert witness can deal with the whole array of tasks, which may in fact go beyond his experience. Another difficulty observed is a general lack of dialogue about the case as a whole among prosecutors, physicians, and criminologists – to mention the three most common components of an investigation. Expert witnesses, regardless of their specialization, are technical assistants to the prosecutor, who orders the investigative measures that he deems necessary. If the prosecutor is unaware of what information can be derived, from a scientific point of view, from a cadaver or bloodstain at the discovery site, it may be difficult to know whether the expert examination presented in court is complete. As different areas of expertise and specialists from various fields are involved, only a multidisciplinary approach can lead to a successful outcome.