Lawther, Cheryl --- "Transitional justice and truth commissions" [2017] ELECD 786; in Lawther, Cheryl; Moffett, Luke; Jacobs, Dov (eds), "Research Handbook on Transitional Justice" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 342

Book Title: Research Handbook on Transitional Justice

Editor(s): Lawther, Cheryl; Moffett, Luke; Jacobs, Dov

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955307

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: Transitional justice and truth commissions

Author(s): Lawther, Cheryl

Number of pages: 16

Abstract/Description:

In recent years truth commissions have become the ‘go to’ response in the aftermath of violent conflict and human rights abuses. They are often presented as a way to manage two problems that commonly occur in peace processes – finding the balance between the need to know what happened in the past and moving forward, and encouraging greater recognition of the complexity of ‘truth’ post conflict. This chapter questions the extent to which truth commissions have tended to shape and reify the identities of victims and perpetrators and whether these binary oppositions obscure the reality of structural culpability. It does so by critically interrogating the relationship between truth commissions and victims, truth commissions and perpetrators and truth commissions and structural actors in turn. The chapter concludes by arguing that greater recognition of the complexity of identity and involvement in conflict is required to provide a more honest reflection of the past and a more sustainable link between truth-telling and peacebuilding. Truth commissions; victims; perpetrators; institutions