UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? Locked inside U.N. headquarters is a huge but largely unknown archive documenting 10,000 cases against accused World War II criminals, from Belgian charges against Adolf Hitler to the trial of a Japanese commander for inciting rape.

Leading British and American researchers are campaigning to make the files hundreds of thousands of pages in 400 boxes public for the first time in 60 years, arguing that they are not only historically valuable but also might unearth legal precedents that could help bring some of today’s war criminals to justice.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington is also seeking to have the archive opened.

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