Human Rights Studies: Primary Source Documents and Archives
Locating Archives and Archival sources
This page links to selected online archives, and highlights some major collections available in U.S. libraries and archives.
Locating Archives at Columbia Libraries:
- Search our catalog CLIO with the "Archives" limit. Browse these Human Rights collections via our catalog.
- Search the Archives Portal which searches more detailed information about our archival holdings.
- Finding Aids exist for each Collection. The Finding aid describes the history and provenance of the collection, its basic arrangement into categories or series, and provides a list of boxes and folders.
For help with accessing archives held in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library, see their website.
Locating Archives beyond Columbia Libraries:
Search ArchiveGrid
See the "United Nations - IGOs - NGOs" tab on this guide
Human Rights Archives in Libraries
- Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research, Columbia University Libraries
CHRDR is the official designated repository for the archival collections and internal records of major Human Rights organizations such as Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, the Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights First. - Human Rights Archive, Duke University,
"The Human Rights Archive partners with the human rights community to preserve the history and legacy of human rights around the world." - Human Rights Documentation Initiative, University of Texas at Austin
"The UT Libraries' Human Rights Documentation Initiative (HRDI) is committed to the long-term preservation of fragile and vulnerable records of human rights struggles worldwide, the promotion and secure usage of human rights archival materials, and the advancement of human rights research and advocacy around the world." - Human Rights Collections, University of Connecticut
"The Human Rights Collections include the Thomas J. Dodd Papers, which document his work as Chief Trial Counsel at the Nuremberg Trials, oral histories and documentation gathered in partnership with the African National Congress in South Africa, the records and library of Human Rights Internet, the records of the Coalition for International Justice, and the Refugee Case Files of the International Rescue Committee." UConn also holds photographs and oral histories. - Rockefeller Center Archive -- Specializes in the records of foundations and philanthropic organizations. RCA "holds the archives of a large and growing number of philanthropic institutions, including the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and many other foundations and civil society organizations, as well as the papers of individuals associated with these organizations." Located just outside of NYC.
Government Document Collections
- Digital National Security Archive . This link opens in a new windowComprehensive collection of declassified U.S. government documents on foreign policy. See also this Guide to using and navigating this collection of documents: http://proquest.libguides.com/dnsa/about
Selected collections available through Columbia Libraries listed below. - Argentina, 1975-1980 : the making of U.S. human rights policy. This link opens in a new window"This collection brings to the fore a unique selection of 2,429 primary source documents illustrating U.S.-Argentina relations during the late 1970s, when, after the collapse of Isabel Perón's government, the Argentine armed forces took control of the country."
- Chile and the United States : U.S. policy toward democracy, dictatorship, and human rights, 1970-1990 (Chile and the U.S.). This link opens in a new window"This collection presents 2,842 once-secret, U.S. records--among them hundreds of declassified Top Secret CIA operational memos, cables, and reports--as well as records from the archives and courts of other nations."
- Colombia and the United States : political violence, narcotics, and human rights, 1948-2010 / Digital National Security Archive. This link opens in a new window"The 2,343 declassified documents from the State Department, the CIA, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and other agencies represent a unique and valuable cross-section of primary source material on U.S. policy toward, and analysis of, its most important Andean ally. . "
El Salvador : the making of U.S. policy, 1977-1984.
This set of documents "contains more than 27,000 pages of documents covering one of the most hotly debated subjects of the last decade: the U.S. role in the civil war in El Salvador, including intelligence-gathering, policy-making, and extensive reporting on human rights abuses.."
El Salvador : war, peace and human rights, 1980-1994.
"The second set of declassified U.S. records concerning El Salvador, this collection incorporates several thousand U.S. government documents relevant to the human rights cases that were studied by the United Nations Truth Commission."
Peru: Human Rights, Drugs and Democracy, 1980-2000.
This is "a uniquely detailed collection of records documenting U.S. foreign policy at work in Latin America, as well as a fascinating story of domestic politics in Peru." Covers Peru's civil war, repression, human rights abuses and authoritarian governance.
South Africa: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1962-1989
This collection provides more than 2,500 primary source documents describing U.S. relationships to apartheid including implementation, enforcement, and violations of the U.N.-sponsored sanctions against South Africa. The collection spans the period from the arrest of Nelson Mandela to his release.
- U.S. Declassified Documents Online. This link opens in a new windowU.S. Declassified Documents Online provides access to previously classified federal records in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The collection brings together the most sensitive documents from all the presidential libraries and numerous executive agencies in a single, easily searchable database, including: intelligence studies, policy papers, diplomatic correspondence, cabinet meeting minutes, briefing materials, and domestic surveillance and military reports. The search and discovery interface for the collection allows researchers to locate the full text of documents and quickly filter their search results by document type, issue date, source institution, classification level, and date declassified as well as other document characteristics.
Freedom of Information Archive (FOIA)
Collaborative project of the History Lab and Columbia Libraries to present over 4.6 million declassified documents. Search also through CLIO's U.S. Government Information section.
Web Archives
Web archives are collections of websites that have been captured and saved and remain available for use, even when original websites are not longer online.
Human Rights Web Archive
Archived collection of 800+ human rights related websites, collected from 2008-present. HRWA is a collecting initiative of the Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research at Columbia University Libraries.
International Tribunals Web Archive
Developed by the U.S. Library of Congress, the International Tribunals Web Archive contains selected websites on the most important international courts and tribunals created since World War II to adjudicate legal issues of a transnational nature.
IvyPlus Consortium Web Archives
Explore this collection of web archives developed collaboratively by libraries; includes Women's rights in China, Queer Japan, Extreme Right Movements in Europe, and several country and regional focused archives.
Library of Congress Human Rights Related Web Archives
Explore a range of web collections, including LGBTQ+, civil rights, women's and gender studies, and collections on Egypt, Afghanistan, Burma/Myanmar, and other countries.
Online archives - CUL Library subscriptions
- Aluka. Struggles for freedom in Southern Africa . This link opens in a new window
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"The Struggles for Freedom . . ., launched in June 2007, focuses on the complex and varied liberation struggles in the region, with an initial concentration on six nations: Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe."
- Amnesty International archives : a global movement for human rights. Digital collection of publications and records of Amnesty International's main Secretariat in London. Covers 1961- c. 1991. Once in the database, see the Guide to Archival Collections and Chronologies for very helpful context.
- Human rights documents online This link opens in a new windowFull text searchable collection of the publications of non-governmental organizations working in the field of human rights, originally collected as the Human Rights Documents Project. Spans 1970s to the present.
- Holocaust and the concentration camp trials : prosecution of Nazi war crimesThis collection provides unique documents on the investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed by Nazi concentration camp commandants and camp personnel.
- NAACP papers. This link opens in a new windowThe NAACP Papers contains a variety of material documenting the history of the organization's work.
- ProQuest History Vault. This link opens in a new windowProvides access to primary source, cross-searchable, full-text, full-image documents on widely studied topics in 19th and 20th-century American history. Content is applicable to research in history, African American studies, women's studies, political science, social sciences, sociology, and international studies.
Open Access Online Archives
A People's Archive of Police Violence in Cleveland
"A People’s Archive of Police Violence in Cleveland collects, preserves, and shares the stories, memories, and accounts of police violence as experienced or observed by Cleveland citizens."
Centro de Documentación y Archivo para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos
The archive at the Centro de Documentación y Archivo para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CdyA) contains Paraguayan security force records from the period of the Stroessner regime, 1954-1989. A portion of the mostly frequently requested documents used in legal cases are available online.
Digital Archive of Latin American and Caribbean Ephemera
Archive of ephemera collected throughout Latin America. Browse "Subjects" to see human rights materials. "The formats or genre most commonly included are pamphlets, flyers, leaflets, brochures, posters, stickers, and postcards. These items were originally created by a wide array of social activists, non-governmental organizations, government agencies, political parties, public policy think tanks, and other types of organizations in order to publicize their views, positions, agendas, policies, events, and activities. The vast majority are rare, hard-to-find primary sources unavailable elsewhere." Visit Princeton to access the earlier archive, collected from the 1970s to the present and currently only available in print.
Digital Archive of the Guatemalan National Police Historical Archive
A collaboratively developed project to digitize and make available over 10 million images of documents recovered from Guatemala's National Police Archive, spanning over 100 years. Coverage includes the period of Guatemala's armed conflict,1960-1996. Review introductory page for help with searching and exploring the archive.
"Documenting Ferguson is a freely available resource that seeks to preserve and make accessible the digital media captured and created by community members following the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9, 2014. Our project has the ultimate goal of providing diverse perspectives on the events in Ferguson and the resulting social dialogue."
Genocide Archive of Rwanda
The archive consists of a"digital collection of items related to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, pre-genocide history and post-genocide reconstruction processes."
Guatemalan News and Information Bureau Archive, 1963-2000
Hosted at Princeton University Library, the GNIB is "an unparalleled archive of gray literature (published and unpublished documents, pronouncements, action alerts, press releases, flyers, newsclippings, correspondence, and other types of ephemeral material), serials, and policy reports representing the actions and views of activist groups, government officers and politicians, journalists, international solidarity groups, as well as revolutionary organizations."
South African History Archive
"The South African History Archive (SAHA) is an independent human rights archive dedicated to documenting, supporting and promoting greater awareness of past and contemporary struggles for justice through archival practices and outreach, and the utilisation of access to information laws."
Syrian Archive
"Syrian Archive is a Syrian led project that aims to preserve, enhance and memorialise documentation of human rights violations and other crimes committed by all parties to conflict in Syria for use in advocacy, justice and accountability."
Testimonies and Oral History - Selected collections
Bosnian and Herzegovina Memories
In this project,100 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) from various social layers and regions have been interviewed with a video camera about their personal experiences during the Second World War and the recent war between 1991 and 1995.
Oral History Archives at Columbia Libraries
Explore the extensive collections; see the Research Guide for more information.
Palestinian Oral History Archive
"The Palestinian Oral History Archive is an archival collection that contains more than 1,000 hours of testimonies with first generation Palestinians and other Palestinian communities in Lebanon. "
- Visual history archive . This link opens in a new windowThe Visual History Archive contains nearly 52,000 video testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust taped in 56 countries and in 32 languages. In April 2013, the Visual History Archive expanded to include a collection of 65 audiovisual testimonies of survivors and witnesses of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi genocide. See this guide for more information: https://library.columbia.edu/services/databases/visualhistory.html
Voices of Rwanda
"Voices of Rwanda is dedicated to recording and preserving testimonies of Rwandans, and to ensuring that their stories inform the world about genocide and inspire a global sense of responsibility to prevent human rights atrocities."
An initiative of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights, seeks "to document and share the stories of survivors of crimes against humanity committed in the context of El Salvador’s armed conflict, and to support Salvadoran efforts for truth and accountability."
Video and media collections
- Alexander Street Press streaming video portal This link opens in a new windowComprehensive streaming video collection delivering titles spanning a wide range of subject areas including The CNN Video Collection, 60 Minutes, American History in Video and Caribbean Studies in Video : the Banyan archive.
- Human rights studies online. This link opens in a new windowSearchable database of documentation, analysis, and interpretation of human rights violations, including primary and secondary source materials. Includes video sources, and covers Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Darfur, and other places and topics.
- Amnesty International USA YouTube Channel
- Human Rights Watch YouTube Channel
- Human Rights First YouTube Channel
- WITNESS YouTube Channel
"Witness helps people use video and technology to defend human rights"
Basic Documents in Human Rights History
Basic Documents Pertaining to Human Rights in the Inter-American System from the Organization of American States.
The International Bill of Human Rights.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Treaty Bodies Database This database was established to meet the growing interest in the bodies established to monitor the principal international human rights treaties, also known as "conventional mechanisms": the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Committee against Torture, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Project, Columbia University
This web-based project considers the influence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on international and domestic law, politics and affairs over the last half century. It asks how and why international human rights have emerged, survived and even flourished as a shared ideology in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Universal Human Rights Instruments, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Contains the full texts of over 90 international human rights treaties, declarations and principles, as well as their status of ratification.
- 25+ Human Rights Documents byCall Number: Lehman Library K3238 .A14 2005gISBN: 9781881482062Publication Date: 2001-07-01