ABSTRACT
Archives are also vital in bringing the truth about human rights violations in the business world to light and offer the best sources of evidence of specific facts for use in imposing sanctions on the authors of violations and in making amends for the harm caused to victims. The Principles do, however, impose a variety of obligations on the States, for example that of ensuring that enterprises operating on their territory do not violate human rights or advising them on how to conduct their activities, when they operate largely abroad and in sectors wide open to violations, such as conflict zones, which places the onus squarely on government. In 2017, in Geneva, the Human Rights Working Group of the International Council on Archives (HRWG) called the attention of the Forum responsible for monitoring application of the Ruggie Principles to the total absence of references to archives and recordkeeping in its document.
