The Archive for Human Rights
Welcome!
The Archive for Human Rights is part of Duke University's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Its mission is to identify, collect, and provide access to materials generated by organizations and individuals working within and having significant impact on the field of human rights. Working in close partnership with the Duke Center for Human Rights, the archive is a key component of Duke University's commitment to social justice, social equality, and social responsibility.
Recent Acquisitions
February 2008: The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) announced today that it will donate its historical archives, which document WOLA’s role as an influential voice for putting human rights and justice at the center of U.S. policy toward Latin America, to the Archive for Human Rights at Duke University Libraries in Durham, North Carolina...
December 2007: The Archive for Human Rights has acquired the papers of Frederick Herzog. Frederick Herzog (1925-1995), former faculty member at the Duke Divinity School, is well known for his work on civil rights and liberation theology...
News and Events
Saturday, May 3, 2008 - Waterboarding, Ghost Planes, and Guantánamo: Inside America’s Secret WarNorth Carolina Stop Torture Now and the Duke Human Rights Center announce a conference on torture...
Day of the Dead Exhibit
In the Fall Semester 2007 the Archive for Human Rights sponsored a celebration of Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead. For this project Duke students had the chance to explore archival collections related to human rights and social justice by curating their own exhibit in the form of a traditional Latin American Dia De Los Muertos ofrenda. We have now posted a photo exhibit of the event.
Collection Spotlight
The International Monitor Institute (IMI) was founded by actress and film producer Pippa Scott in 1984. Scott was a founding partner of Lorimar Productions (producer of such TV hits as "The Waltons" and "Dallas") and went on to establish Linden Productions in 1987. Linden is committed to developing documentary films about current issues. Linden's latest production is "King Leopold's Ghost", a documentary about the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium.
IMI operated between 1993 and 2003, primarily to assist international war-crimes tribunals by collecting, indexing and organizing video evidence of violations of international human rights law. Material was collected on the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Burma, and Cambodia. The collection now residing at Duke includes master and use copies of approx. 6,000 videocassettes, 100 audio cassettes, photographs, a reference library, and organizational records. The video and audio material is indexed by an extensive database developed by IMI which includes keywords, air dates, segment producer, segment title, and in some cases, even transcripts and stills from the video. RBMSCL and the Archive for Human Rights will be processing the collection in 2007-2008.
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