The Memory of Poeples’ Rights

The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal Fund forms a substantial part of the documentary heritage of Fondazione Lelio e Lisli Basso ETS and was declared of significant cultural interest by the Archival Superintendency for Lazio on 30 October 2007. 

The Fund was gradually built up through the documentation produced and acquired during the Tribunal’s numerous sessions. It serves as a documentary record of more than four decades of the Tribunal’s commitment to defending the rights of peoples and denouncing violations of those rights in numerous regions of the world. The Fund also documents the methods of intervention and guiding principles that have characterised the Tribunal’s activities, bearing witness to the role played by social movements, civil society organisations, local communities, experts and international solidarity networks in developing the cases examined by the PPT. From a material standpoint, the Fund is divided into two main sections. The first section contains documentation relating to the organisation and operation of the Tribunal, which is arranged chronologically by session. This includes correspondence, materials relating to the organisation of the sessions, invitations sent to participants and details of the composition of the Panels of Judges who took part in the Tribunal’s proceedings. The second section contains materials produced during the sessions and proceedings that led to the drafting of the Judgements. For each session, these materials are organised into files and subsections documenting the various stages of the investigative and trial proceedings, including requests, indictments and documentation submitted or collected in preparation for the hearings. Where available, there are also press clippings reflecting the public reception of the Tribunal’s activities.

The Fund reflects the evolution of record-keeping practices and communication technologies that have accompanied the Tribunal’s activities over the decades. Until the mid-2000s, records were primarily produced and preserved in paper format and collected and organised into physical files, which still form the core of the PPT’s archival holdings today. As digital tools became more widespread, the methods of producing, transmitting and preserving sources gradually transformed. From the 2000s onwards, the Fund gradually became enriched with digital documentation, eventually taking on its current form in which digital materials represent the predominant component of the documentation produced by the Tribunal. 

Currently, the Fund is only partially accessible as it is in the process of being gradually reorganised, catalogued and digitised. This process has focused particularly on records produced during the first fifteen years of the Tribunal’s operations. As this is a living archive closely connected to ongoing activities, the organisation and availability of materials necessarily follows differentiated criteria. This depends on the planning of preservation, description and digitisation interventions, which are carried out progressively based on available resources. In addition, there is a need to protect documents containing sensitive information, as well as witnesses and individuals involved in contexts of particular vulnerability or risk.

Alongside the preservation efforts, the gradual digitisation of the documentation has significantly expanded the opportunities for consulting and disseminating the PPT’s collection. In recent years, particular attention has been devoted to producing audiovisual materials and developing the Tribunal’s website. The website provides new content, search tools, Judgments and key documentation related to the most recent sessions held. These tools have made the Tribunal’s documentary archives more accessible to researchers, scholars, human rights defenders, civil society organisations and institutions interested in the Tribunal’s work and the issues it addresses.