Inaugural meeting
“A meeting on the co-ordination of the handling of public human rights information between European based organisations and institutions specialising in human rights was held on 2 and 3 February 1981 at the Council of Europe‘s headquarters in Strasbourg. The meeting was organised by the Directorate of Human Rights of the Council of Europe, on the initiative of the Chairman of the International Working Group for the establishment of a human rights international documentation system (HURIDOCS).
The meeting was convened in accordance with the recognised need to develop the systematic use of public human rights information between all those concerned with its .collection, storage and retrieval. It was thought desirable to bring together, persons specialising in information handling techniques, and the subject specialists in the field of human rights to discuss the possibilities of co-ordination of the handling of human rights information, on the basis of an agreed system of information communication, in order to meet the need for a steady flow of access to such information between and within organisations and institutions specialising in human rights.”
The list of participants is contained in Appendix I. The agenda of the meeting, as adopted by participants, is reproduced in Appendix II to this report.