Episode 2: Trudy Huskamp Peterson – The Challenge Of Preserving Transitional Archives

The 3-part series “Can the record be trusted?” explores the prospects and challenges of human rights documentation and archives in the digital age, with speakers from an international expert workshop that took place at Queen's University Belfast in November 2024.

In this episode, Dagmar Hovestädt speaks with Dr. Trudy Huskamp Peterson, international consultant on archives and human rights. With decades of experience—from the U.S. National Archives to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees—Trudy has worked with archives of truth commissions, international tribunals, and other conflict archives worldwide, including in Guatemala, South Africa, Honduras, Rwanda, Cambodia and Sierra Leone.

The conversation revolves around Trudy’s groundbreaking work on preserving truth commission records and explores the unresolved challenge of international tribunal archives. With multiple tribunals closing, questions about who will make access decisions and ensure long-term preservation remain desperately unresolved.

From her perspective, the current next generation of vast amounts of digital data in human rights violations - from electronic records to DNA samples in conflict contexts – is to be looked at through an archival lens: "Preservation is not a problem to be solved. It is a process to be managed."

About: Dr. Trudy Huskamp Peterson is an international consultant specializing in archives and human rights. She began her work at the U.S. National Archives and after 20 years embarked on an international journey in support of human rights and records. She has consulted for truth commissions, international tribunals, and the UN on archival issues worldwide. She is a longtime member of the International Council on Archives and a co-founder of its Section on Archives and Human Rights

More: Trudy Huskamp Peterson and International Council on Archives