ABSTRACT As military forces make their way through opposition territory, they seize enemy records that are likely to serve their military objectives. These records might be in government files, military installations, or opposing soldiers' packs and pockets. Known as documents, the records are legally designated as booty under international law; upon capture they become the legitimate property of the capturing military. Some of the captured documents may serve as evidence in international criminal tribunals relevant to the hostilities. Beyond that use, there is no international law associated with the application, retention, or dissemination of either the documents or the contained within them. The documents might be destroyed, donated, archived, or stored. If they are archived, researchers have the best chance of implementing their content. However, the lack of international regulations about access to these archives enables incomplete research. Additional and contrary access concerns arise as new technologies expand the methods and extent of document capture and exposure. Clearly, the past century's document capture has benefited individuals and institutions far beyond the scope of military objectives and criminal prosecutions. International law should balance the interests at stake as documents make their way from the battle zone to foreign society. My research examines the provenance of captured documents and considers their usage and the attendant legal and social interests to which they apply as they pass among possessors. Building on my research observations, I suggest potential international legal interventions that could assure more just transmission or repatriation. CAPTURE Upon capture, documents are logged, sorted, translated, and otherwise processed for military interpretation and application to military objectives. Treaties about conduct of war and war crimes set forth the existing law approving military document seizure. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 8(2)b(xiii), for example, declares that Destroying or seizing the enemy's property unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of is a war crime. National military manuals set forth the procedures for seizure and handling. As technology has evolved to enable remote, faster, and more thorough capture, the phrase information waffle has come to represent the use of technology to intercept, exploit, and destroy enemy computer systems. The existing legal scholarship about warfare examines the conduct of operations and ways of protecting the home country's information, but not the legal distinctions caused by its use in document capture. The originating country, for example, no longer has to be deprived of a document when the enemy captures it by seizing computer files. The capturing country now has increased ability to exploit more precisely sources relevant to specific military goals. A convention establishing standards for document capture could set boundaries for technology implementation, resource targeting, and retention. EXAMINATION After the capturing military has selected from the captured material the content necessary for its objectives, the documents are examined by government researchers and academics for prospective evidentiary use in criminal tribunals. Capturing governments enter into private agreements with other governments, academics, and occasionally nongovernmental organizations to arrange this document analysis. During the Vietnam war, for example, South Vietnam and the United States agreed to jointly build and operate the Combined Documents Exploitation Center (CDEC) where captured documents were translated, catalogued, and microfilmed. After the war, South Vietnam retained the facility and the original documents while the U. …