additional tools. The standards for unofficial investigations that were
collected are presented comprehensibly in this Handbook, the Handbook on
Civil Society Documentation of Serious Human Rights Violations. In
addition, they are presented in a more visual and easily transportable way in
the accompanying Field Guide on the Documentation of Serious Human
Rights Violations. Moreover, PILPG, together with a consortium of
partners, has produced a Human Rights Documentation Toolkit.
The Human Rights Documentation Toolkit is a multi-sector and
interactive online portal accessible to human rights documenters on the
ground, providing them with existing documentation resources, best
practices, and ongoing support from other documentation stakeholders. The
Toolkit project will help break down barriers between documentation
stakeholders in different sectors and increase collaboration and coordination
on documentation efforts by creating a cross-sector set of broadly accepted
practices, tools, and methods for human rights documentation. The HRD
Toolkit was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of
Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and will be an online portal of
resources for documenters of human rights violations. The project was
implemented by a consortium of ten diverse partner organizations: PILPG,
the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC); International Coalition of Sites of
Conscience (ISCS); OutRight Action International; the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); the SecDev
Foundation; SecDev Cyber; the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI);
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR); and the International Bar Association’s
eyeWitness to Atocities.
All these materials are or will be available on the Public International
Law & Policy Group’s website, at www.pilpg.org, in the “Knowledge
Management” section, under “Toolkits and Handbooks.”
With regard to this Handbook, Chapter 2 discusses important ethical
and investigative principles, including the principle of doing no harm, the
notions of confidentiality and informed consent, the risks of traumatization
and re-traumatization, and the importance of a system of referrals to serviceproviders in the context of interactions with traumatized and vulnerable
populations. In line with the overall tone of this Handbook, the Chapter also
discusses the importance of managing expectations and striving to maintain
the traceability of a chain of custody for the information collected. Finally,
Chapter 2 discusses the importance of the preparation and planning phase,
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