1. INTRODUCTION While HURIDOCS recognises the diversity of its constituency, to which it would continue to strive to be responsive, it is also deemed incumbent for it to give priority to the needs of emerging organisations. 1.3 INFORMATION HANDLING TOOLS HURIDOCS provides services by developing tools and techniques which organisations can use in carrying out their work. After the tools are developed, then training is provided on these tools, as well as on related areas of knowledge and skills. In particular, HURIDOCS has produced standard formats for recording and exchanging information on human rights and has encouraged organisations around the world to use them. HURIDOCS developed a bibliographic standard format and an organisational format first. These were published in 1985 under the title HURIDOCS Standard Formats for the Recording and Exchange of Information on Human Rights. 4 A revised edition of the bibliographic format is now available under the title HURIDOCS Standard Formats for the Recording and Exchange of Bibliographic Information concerning Human Rights. 5 The next set of formats developed by HURIDOCS, the Events Standard Formats, were published in 1993 under the title HURIDOCS Standard Formats: A Tool for Documenting Human Rights Violations. 6 They followed on from the success of the bibliographic formats and have been developed particularly in response to requests from human rights organisations in developing countries. While the bibliographic formats follow a well-established pattern of cataloguing rules and indexing methods, there was no similar universal pattern to follow in constructing standard formats for documenting events. International bodies use their own standard formats. Therefore human rights organisations might have to use several different forms and formats, if they want to report cases to several international bodies such as the UN Human Rights Committee, Amnesty International or SOS Torture. The Events Standard Formats are based on existing forms, stated requirements of organisations collecting and receiving information, extensive discussion within the HURIDOCS Task Force and the HURIDOCS network, as well as input from other experts in the field of human rights documentation. It is hoped that they will be used as a tool for documentation and communication of information about human rights violations. The formats were at first developed mainly for use in protecting civil and political rights, and emphasis has been placed on torture, arrests and detention, deaths and killings, displacements and destruction of property, disappearances, deportations, exile and banishment. This revised 4 Stormorken, Bjørn. HURIDOCS Standard Formats for the Recording and Exchange of Information on Human Rights. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers on behalf of HURIDOCS, 1985. 5 Noval, Aída María, et al. HURIDOCS Standard Formats for the Recording and Exchange of Bibliographic Information concerning Human Rights. Geneva: HURIDOCS, 1993. 6 Dueck, Judith, et al. HURIDOCS Standard Formats: A Tool for Documenting Human Rights Violations. Oslo: HURIDOCS, 1993. 2