The application of the forensic sciences to human rights investigations

Prior to the mid-1980's, human rights abuses were documented almost entirely through witness and victim testimony. In 1984-85, forensic scientists from the United States, working under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, exhumed skeletal remains of disappeared persons in Argentina. They provided physical evidence for the trial of members of the deposed military junta and trained an Argentine forensic anthropology team. It became apparent that medical and forensic verification of torture and extrajudicial executions could provide irrefutable evidence that such activities had, in fact, taken place. Requests for assistance came from human rights groups throughout the world, and led to the development of an international protocol for the investigation of government sponsored murders. The United States based Physicians for Human Rights has now conducted missions to nearly 30 countries. The recent documentation of mass graves in El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraqi Kurdistan and the former Yugoslavia demonstrates how forensic scientists expose such crimes to international scrutiny, and the necessity of scientific evidence when confronting human rights violations.