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HU OSA 304-0-3
Fonds 304: Records of the International Human Rights Law Institute Relating to the Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia (IHRLI)
Series 3: Numbered Commission Document Files (''Bates File'')

Date(s) 1987-1994 (predominant 1991-1994)

Extent and medium 33 Archival boxes, 4 linear meters

Name of creator(s) International Human Rights Law Institute

Scope and content

The main series of the Records of the International Human Rights Law Institute, it contain documents, submissions, reports, findings, testimonies, studies, letters and publications received from governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations and gathered by Commission itself. The document file was created during the Commission's 18 month in-depth investigation and relates primarily to these areas:

(i) Mass killings and destruction of property;
(ii) Treatment of prisoners and detainees;
(iii) Systematic sexual assault;
(iv) "Ethnic Cleansing".

The documents were gathered at the International Human Rights Law Institute. As they arrived at the IHRLI office, they were stamped with the sequential number for control purposes (a 'Bates stamp'). They were used by Commission staff members who were working on particular sections of the Final Report. During the process some documents of the 'Bates file' were pulled out and organized as separate bodies of documents connected to related parts of the Final Report. Most of the documents can be found in other series of the records of the IHRLI. Additional documents were removed by the Commission in order to mantain the confidentiality of the information obtained, in particular testimonies of victims or of witnesses of grave breaches of international humanitarian law.

System of arrangement

Language/scripts of material

Principally English, Serbian, and Croatian, but also German, French, and Italian

Finding aids

Archivist's Note

A few remaining documents which were not removed by the UN Comission are stored separately and not accessible.

Date(s) of descriptions

Processed and described by Bosko Spasojevic, 12 September 2000; revised by Anna Svenson, March 2005.
Online version updated 18 December 2008
© 1995-2005 Open Society Archives at Central European University