1932

Abstract

This review surveys the philosophical underpinnings, conceptual frames, and methodological choices informing the scholarship on truth commission impact to examine whether, how, how much, and why truth commissions influence policy, court decisions, and social norms. It focuses on three areas: () truth commission impact as the product of complex interactions between politicians, civil society activists, and truth commissions; () conceptual and methodological debates and disagreements in studies of impact; and () normative visions guiding expectations and assessments. The findings of empirical scholarship range from partial confirmation of bold and at times vague expectations to damning accounts of commissions’ failure to deliver. In addition to conceptual and methodological choices, scholars’ normative assumptions and expectations also explain divergent accounts of truth commission impact. Three sets of normative frameworks set the expectations in particular: building liberal democratic institutions; transforming socioeconomic, gendered, and racialized hierarchies; and reflecting local values, norms, and power dynamics.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111620-010000
2021-10-13
2024-10-07
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/lawsocsci/17/1/annurev-lawsocsci-111620-010000.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111620-010000&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Aboueldahab N. 2017. Transitional Justice and the Prosecution of Leaders in the Arab Region: A Comparative Study of Egypt Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. Oxford, UK: Hart Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Adorno TW 1986. What does coming to terms with the past mean?. Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective GHH Hartman 114–29 Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Androff DK. 2012. Can civil society reclaim truth? Results from a community-based truth and reconciliation commission. Int. J. Transit. Justice 6:2296–317
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Arthur P. 2009. How “transitions” reshaped human rights: a conceptual history of transitional justice. Hum. Rights Q. 31:2321–54
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Atencio RJ. 2019. From truth commission to post-truth politics in Brazil. Curr. Hist. 118:80568–74
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Avruch K, Vejarano B. 2001. Truth and reconciliation commissions: a review essay and annotated bibliography. Soc. Justice Anthropol. Peace Hum. Rights 2:1–247–108
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Ayodeji GI, Erinosho TO, Fayemi JA. 2020. Debriefing the role of truth, reconciliation and reparations commission in The Gambia's human rights violations and quest for justice. J. Public Adm. Finance Law 17:372–89
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Baines E. 2010. Spirits and social reconstruction after mass violence: rethinking transitional justice. Afr. Aff. 109:436409–30
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bakiner O. 2014. Truth commission impact: an assessment of how commissions influence politics and society. Int. J. Transit. Justice. 8:16–30
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Bakiner O. 2015. Truth Commissions: Memory, Power, and Legitimacy Philadelphia: Univ. Pa. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Balasco L. 2016. The double transition of transitional justice in Peru: confronting the appeal of iron-fist policies. Int. J. Hum. Rights 20:81177–98
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Billingsley K. 2019. Making them accountable: victim-activists’ critical engagement with truth commissions in Nepal. J. Hum. Rights Pract. 11:1190–208
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Bosire LK, Lynch G. 2014. Kenya's search for truth and justice: the role of civil society. Int. J. Transit. Justice 8:2256–76
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Bowsher J. 2020. The South African TRC as neoliberal reconciliation: victim subjectivities and the synchronization of affects. Soc. Leg. Stud. 29:141–64
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Bueno-Hansen P. 2018. The emerging LGBTI rights challenge to transitional justice in Latin America. Int. J. Transit. Justice 12:1126–45
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Buergenthal JT. 2006. Truth commissions: between impunity and prosecution—transcript of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center Lecture in Global Legal Reform. Case West. Reserve J. Int. Law 38:217–23
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Burt JM. 2009. Guilty as charged: the trial of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori for human rights violations. Int. J. Transit. Justice 3:3384–405
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Calavita K. 2010. Invitation to Law and Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Carmody M. 2016. Post-authoritarian state formation in Argentina: transitional justice as the accumulation of symbolic power. J. Hist. Sociol. 30:3496–517
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Chang-Liao N-C, Chen Y-J 2019. Transitional justice in Taiwan: changes and challenges. Wash. Int. Law J. 28:3619–44
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Clar P. 2010. The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Justice Without Lawyers Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Crenzel E. 2008. Argentina's National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons: contributions to transitional justice. Int. J. Transit. Justice 2:2173–91
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Dancy G, Thoms OT. 2019. Truth commissions and democracy: testing the links. Paper presented at the APSA Annual Meeting Washington, DC: Sept. 1
    [Google Scholar]
  24. David R. 2017. What we know about transitional justice: survey and experimental evidence. Political Psychol 38:Suppl. 1151–77
    [Google Scholar]
  25. De Ycaza C. 2013. A search for truth: a critical analysis of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Hum. Rights Rev. 14:3189–212
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Dicklitch S, Malik A 2010. Justice, human rights, and reconciliation in postconflict Cambodia. Hum. Rights Rev. 11:4515–30
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Domaradzki S, Khvostova M, Pupovac D. 2019. Karel Vasak's generations of rights and the contemporary human rights discourse. Hum. Rights Rev. 20:4423–43
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Dragovic-Soso J. 2016. History of a failure: attempts to create a national truth and reconciliation commission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1997–2006. Int. J. Transit. Justice 10:2292–310
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Ensalaco M. 1994. Truth commissions for Chile and El Salvador: a report and assessment. Hum. Rights Q. 16:4657–75
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Espinosa A, Páez D, Velázquez T, Cueto R, Seminario E et al. 2016. Between remembering and forgetting the years of political violence: psychosocial impact of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Peru. Political Psychol 38:5849–66
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Evenson EM. 2004. Truth and justice in Sierra Leone: coordination between commission and court. Columbia Law Rev 104:3730–67
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Ferrara A. 2014. Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Truth Commissions: The Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Historical Perspective Abingdon, UK: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Flory P. 2015. International criminal justice and truth commissions: From strangers to partners?. J. Int. Crim. Justice 13:19–42
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Fobear K. 2014. Queering truth commissions. J. Hum. Rights Pract. 6:151–68
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Franke KM. 2006. Gendered subjects of transitional justice. Columbia J. Gend. Law 15:3813–28
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Freeman M, Hayner PB 2003. Truth-telling. Reconciliation After Violent Conflict: A Handbook D Bloomfield, T Barnes, and L Huyse 122–44 Stockholm: Int. IDEA
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Gibson JL. 2004a. Truth, reconciliation, and the creation of a human rights culture in South Africa. Law Soc. Rev. 38:15–40
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Gibson JL. 2004b. Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? New York: Russell Sage Found.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Grandin G. 2005. The instruction of great catastrophe: truth commissions, national history, and state formation in Argentina, Chile, and Guatemala. Am. Hist. Rev. 110:146–67
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Grodsky B. 2008. Justice without transition: truth commissions in the context of repressive rule. Hum. Rights Rev. 9:3281–97
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Guematcha E. 2019. Genocide against indigenous peoples: the experiences of the truth commissions of Canada and Guatemala. Int. Indig. Policy J. 10:26
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Hafner-Burton EM, Ron J 2009. Seeing double: human rights impact through qualitative and quantitative eyes. World Politics 61:2360–401
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Hamber B, Wilson RA. 2002. Symbolic closure through memory, reparation and revenge in post-conflict societies. J. Hum. Rights 1:135–53
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Harroff L. 2018. Lessons from truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa, Kenya, and the United States for transitional and restorative justice. Kans. J. Law Public Policy 28:527–60
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Hayner PB. 2007. Negotiating Peace in Sierra Leone: Confronting the Justice Challenge Geneva: Cent. Humanit. Dialogue
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Hayner PB. 2010. Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2nd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Hiner H. 2016. ¿El “nunca más” tiene género? Un análisis comparativo de las comisiones de la verdad en Chile y Argentina. Estud. Sociol. 20:39253–70
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Humphrey M. 2005. Reconciliation and the therapeutic state. J. Intercult. Stud. 26:3203–20
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Ingiyimbere F. 2019. Transitional justice as a learning process: a contribution from the domesticating human rights model. Philos. Soc. Crit. 45:6709–27
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Kashyap R. 2009. Narrative and truth: a feminist critique of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Contemp. Justice Rev. 12:4449–67
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Keck ME, Sikkink K. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Kent L. 2016. After the truth commission: gender and citizenship in Timor-Leste. Hum. Rights Rev. 17:51–70
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Kim HJ. 2012. Local, national, and international determinants of truth commission: the South Korean experience. Hum. Rights Q. 34:3726–50
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Kim HJ. 2019. Why do states adopt truth commissions after transition?. Soc. Sci. Q. 100:51485–502
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Kochanski A. 2018. The “local turn” in transitional justice: Curb the enthusiasm. Int. Stud. Rev. 22:126–50
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Kochanski A. 2020. Mandating truth: patterns and trends in truth commission design. Hum. Rights Rev. 21:2113–37
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Kpanake L, Mullet E. 2011. What can reasonably be expected from a truth commission? A Togolese view. Confl. Resolut. Q. 29:2201–24
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Laplante LJ, Theidon KS. 2007. Truth with consequences: justice and reparations in post-truth commission Peru. Hum. Rights Q. 29:228–50
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Lawther C. 2018.. “ The cast of the past”: truth commissions and the making and marginalization of identity. Ethnopolitics 17:2113–29
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Lundy P, McGovern M. 2008. Whose justice? Rethinking transitional justice from the bottom up. J. Law Soc. 35:2265–92
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Maier N. 2020. Queering Colombia's peace process: a case study of LGBTI inclusion. Int. J. Hum. Rights 24:4377–92
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Mamdani M. 2002. Amnesty or impunity? A preliminary critique of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. Diacritics 32:3–433–59
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Martinez AM, Bombelli J. 2013. La CONADEP y el Informe Nunca Más: conocimiento, eficacia y emociones asociadas. Anu. Investig. 2013:197–205
    [Google Scholar]
  64. McEvoy K. 2007. Beyond legalism: towards a thicker understanding of transitional justice. J. Law Soc. 34:4411–40
    [Google Scholar]
  65. McEvoy K, McConnachie K. 2013. Victims and transitional justice: voice, agency and blame. Soc. Leg. Stud. 22:4489–513
    [Google Scholar]
  66. McEvoy K, Schwartz A. 2015. Judges, conflict, and the past. J. Law Soc. 42:4528–55
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Menzel A. 2020. The pressures of getting it right: expertise and victims’ voices in the work of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Int. J. Transit. Justice 14:2300–19
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Merry SE. 2006. Anthropology and international law. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 35:99–116
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Millar G. 2011. Between western theory and local practice: cultural impediments to truth-telling in Sierra Leone. Confl. Resolut. Q. 29:2177–99
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Minow M. 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence Boston: Beacon:
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Minow M. 2019. Do alternative justice mechanisms deserve recognition in international criminal law? Truth commissions, amnesties, and complementarity at the International Criminal Court. Harvard Int. Law J. 60:11–46
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Nagy R. 2014. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: genesis and design. Can. J. Law Soc. 29:2199–217
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Nagy R. 2020. Settler witnessing at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Hum. Rights Rev. 21:3219–41
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Nagy RL. 2013. The scope and bounds of transitional justice and the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Int. J. Transit. Justice 7:152–73
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Ochoa-Sánchez JC. 2019. Economic and social rights and truth commissions. Int. J. Hum. Rights 23:91470–93
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Olsen TD, Payne LA, Reiter AG. 2010. Transitional justice in balance: comparing processes, weighing efficacy Washington, DC: Inst. Peace Press
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Palmer N, Jones B, Viebach J. 2015. Introduction: ways of knowing atrocity: a methodological enquiry into the formulation, implementation, and assessment of transitional justice. Can. J. Law Soc. 30:2173–82
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Paulson J 2010. Truth commissions and national curriculum: the case of the Recordándonos resource in Peru. Children and Transitional Justice: Truth Telling, Accountability and Reconciliation S Parmar, MJ Roseman, S Siegrist, T Sowa 327–64 Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Payne LA. 2007. Unsettling Accounts: Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Payne LA, Pereira G. 2016. Corporate complicity in international human rights violations. Annu. Rev. Law Soc. Sci. 12:63–84
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Quinn JR. 2009. Haiti's failed truth commission: lessons in transitional justice. J. Hum. Rights 8:3265–81
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Reading A. 2019. The female memory factory: how the gendered labour of memory creates mnemonic capital. Eur. J. Women's Stud. 26:3293–312
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Rombouts H, Parmentier S. 2002. The role of the legal profession in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Neth. Q. Hum. Rights 20:3273–98
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Rosenberg GN. 2008. The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring about Social Change? Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Rowen I, Rowen J. 2017. Taiwan's Truth and Reconciliation Committee: the geopolitics of transitional justice in a contested state. Int. J. Transit. Justice 11:192–112
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Rowen J. 2017a. Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Rowen JR. 2017b.. “ We don't believe in transitional justice”: peace and the politics of legal ideas in Colombia. Law Soc. Inq. 42:3622–47
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Rudling A. 2019. What's inside the box? Mapping agency and conflict within victims’ organizations. Int. J. Transit. Justice 13:3458–77
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Sarkin J. 2018. Redesigning the definition a truth commission, but also designing a forward-looking non-prescriptive definition to make them potentially more successful. Hum. Rights Rev. 19:3349–68
    [Google Scholar]
  90. Sarmiento Barletti JP, Seedhouse L 2019. The truth and reconciliation commission and the law of prior consultation: obstacles and opportunities for democratization and political participation in Peru. Lat. Am. Perspect. 46:5111–27
    [Google Scholar]
  91. Schulz P. 2019. Towards inclusive gender in transitional justice: gaps, blind-spots and opportunities. J. Interv. Statebuilding 14:5691–710
    [Google Scholar]
  92. Slye RC. 2018. The Kenyan TJRC: An Outsider's View from the Inside Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  93. Smith J, Jeffrey DB. 2020. The role of seeking the truth about past human rights abuses in developing the rule of law in a society. J. Sociol. Psychol. Relig. Stud. 2:11–7
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Stockwell J. 2014.. “ The country that doesn't want to heal itself”: the burden of history, affect and women's memories in post-dictatorial Argentina. Int. J. Confl. Violence 8:131–44
    [Google Scholar]
  95. Torelly M. 2018. Assessing a late truth commission: challenges and achievements of the Brazilian National Truth Commission. Int. J. Transit. Justice 12:2194–215
    [Google Scholar]
  96. Vallee M. 2019. Truth commission discourse and the aesthetics of reconciliation. Law Cult. Humanit. 15:3728–43
    [Google Scholar]
  97. Villalón R, Crenzel E. 2015. Genesis, uses, and significations of the Nunca Más report in Argentina. Lat. Am. Perspect. 42:320–38
    [Google Scholar]
  98. Wiebelhaus-Brahm E. 2010. Truth Commissions and Transitional Societies: The Impact on Human Rights and Democracy New York: Routledge
    [Google Scholar]
  99. Wiebelhaus-Brahm E. 2016. Goals and processes: the Arab World and the transitional justice impact literature. Int. J. Hum. Rights 20:3426–43
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Wilson RA. 2000. Reconciliation and revenge in post-Apartheid South Africa. Curr. Anthropol. 41:175–98
    [Google Scholar]
  101. Winston C. 2020. Truth commissions as tactical concessions: the curious case of Idi Amin. Int. J. Hum. Rights 25:2251–73
    [Google Scholar]
  102. Yeh H-L, Su C-H. 2019. Never too late—the work of the Transitional Justice Commission in Taiwan. Wash. Int. Law J. 28:3609–17
    [Google Scholar]
  103. Yusuf HO. 2007. Travails of truth: achieving justice for victims of impunity in Nigeria. Int. J. Transit. Justice 1:2268–86
    [Google Scholar]
  104. Zinkel B. 2019. Apartheid and Jim Crow: drawing lessons from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation. J. Disput. Resolut. 2019:1229–56
    [Google Scholar]
  105. Zvobgo K. 2019. Designing truth: facilitating perpetrator testimony at truth commissions. J. Hum. Rights 18:192–110
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-111620-010000
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error