Principle 2: Thorough Investigation
tronic data, has become a “hot topic” in the legal industry in recent years.267 To
address the challenges of information management in the digital age, a leading
group of lawyers, jurists, and academics developed the Sedona Guidelines, a
set of best practices for electronic record retention in the litigation context.268
Despite their originally narrow focus, the Sedona Guidelines echo international
standards and can inform any records retention policy,269 including that of
an election investigation body. The Sedona Guidelines include key elements
that are noted in the box above, among others.
Finally, the United Nations Archives and Records Management Section
(ARMS), in addition to complying with international standards such as the
ISO 15489, has developed a number of additional internal protocols and
guidelines. Although these are intended to inform United Nations’ offices,
they can also be helpful to election investigation bodies. ARMS’s records
and information management guidance can be used to comprehensively review existing records management strategies.270 The User Guide to Retention
Schedule Implementation offers generally applicable tips on document disposition, which is the final stage of records management in which the records
are either destroyed or permanently retained.271 Likewise, the Guidelines on
Records Destruction discuss the five principles behind document disposition
(authorized, appropriate, secure/confidential, timely, and documented) and
provide a checklist for records destruction.272
As is clear from the above discussion, the international imperative to keep
and manage thorough investigative records raises important questions. What
267 LexisNexis, Elements of a Good Document Retention Policy 1 (2007), http://www.lexisnexis.com/AppliedDiscovery/lawlibrary/whitePapers/ADI_WP_ElementsOfAGoodDocRetentionPolicy.pdf.
268 The Sedona Conf ., The Sedona Guidelines: Best Practice Guidelines & Commentary for Managing Information & Records
in the Electronic Age (2d ed., 2007), https://thesedonaconference.org/publication/Managing%20Information%20%2526%20
Records.
269 Thomas M. Jones et al., Going Global: Mapping an International Records Retention Strategy, Info. Mgmt. (2008), http://
content.arma.org/imm/MayJune2008/going_global_mapping_an_international.aspx (discussing how the Sedona Guidelines’
best practices can serve as a foundation for any organization’s records retention policy).
270 See, e.g., U.N. Dep’t of Mgmt. Archives & Records Mgmt. Sec., How Do I Assess the Quality of my Office’s Records Systems?,
https://archives.un.org/sites/archives.un.org/files/10-guidance_recordkeeping_quality.pdf (last visited May 29, 20202015).
271 U.N. Dep’t of Mgmt. Archives & Records Mgmt. Sec., Guideline: User Guide to Retention Schedule Implementation (2012),
https://archives.un.org/sites/archives.un.org/files/general/documents/guideline_retention_schedule_implementation.pdf ;
Record Disposition, Business Dictionary, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/record-disposition.html (last visited May
28, 2020).
272 U.N. Dep’t of Mgmt. Archives & Records Mgmt. Sec., Guideline on Records Destruction (2012), https://archives.un.org/
content/our-policies-standards-and-guidelines.
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