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The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.
A truth commission, also known as a truth and reconciliation commission or truth and justice commission, is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government, in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past. Truth commissions are, under various names, occasionally set up by states emerging from periods of internal unrest, civil war, or dictatorship marked by human rights abuses. In both their truth-seeking and reconciling functions, truth commissions have political implications: they "constantly make choices when they define such basic objectives as truth, reconciliation, justice, memory, reparation, and recognition, and decide how these objectives should be met and whose needs should be served".
The Equity and Reconciliation Commission is a Moroccan human rights and truth commission created on January 7, 2004, when King Mohammed VI signed a Dahir. The commission was established to reconcile victims of human rights abuses, such as torture, forced disappearances and arbitrary arrests, committed by the government and high-ranking officials during the Years of Lead, with the State. The commission investigates events from 1956 to 1999, spanning the reign of the two previous monarchs. The proclaimed objectives of the commission were the protection and the promotion of the human rights in Morocco.
Monica Mary McWilliams is a Northern Irish academic, peace activist, human rights defender and former politician in Northern Ireland.
Transitional justice is a process which responds to human rights violations through judicial redress, political reforms in a region or country, and other measures in order to prevent the recurrence of human rights abuse. Transitional justice consists of judicial and non-judicial measures implemented in order to redress legacies of human rights abuses. Such mechanisms "include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programs, and various kinds of institutional reforms" as well as memorials, apologies, and various art forms. Transitional justice is instituted at a point of political transition classically from war to positive peace, or more broadly from violence and repression to societal stability and it is informed by a society's desire to rebuild social trust, reestablish what is right from what is wrong, repair a fractured justice system, and build a democratic system of governance. The core value of transitional justice is the very notion of justice—which does not necessarily mean criminal justice. This notion and the political transformation, such as regime change or transition from conflict are thus linked to a more peaceful, certain, and democratic future.
The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) was founded in 2001 as a non-profit organization dedicated to pursuing accountability for mass atrocity and human rights abuse through transitional justice mechanisms.
The Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor was an independent truth commission established in East Timor in 2001 under the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and charged to “inquire into human rights violations committed on all sides, between April 1974 and October 1999, and facilitate community reconciliation with justice for those who committed less serious offenses.” The idea of a truth commission in East Timor was first agreed by the National Council of Timorese Resistance in 2000.
Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 July 2012. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to the position in April 2006. She was nominated to the Constitutional Council as a civil representative on 10 September 2015. In 2017, after atrocities against the Rohingya people, she was appointed a Member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar.
The Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is a Parliament-enacted organization created in May 2005 under the Transitional Government. The Commission worked throughout the first mandate of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf after she was election President of Liberia in November 2005. The Liberian TRC came to a conclusion in 2010, filing a final report and recommending relevant actions by national authorities to ensure responsibility and reparations.
Helen Beatriz Mack Chang is a Guatemalan businesswoman and human rights activist. She became an outspoken advocate for human rights after her sister, anthropologist Myrna Mack Chang, was assassinated by the Guatemalan military on 11 September 1990. She pursued prosecution of her sister's assailants, including ground-breaking cases in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, achieving convictions of one assailant and a high-ranking colonel. The Guatemalan government acknowledged responsibility in 2004 and has paid compensation to Mack and her family.
Marina Schuster is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party.
Tecla Namachanja Wanjala is a conflict resolution, post-conflict rehabilitation, and development worker from Kenya. She was the Acting Chair of The Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission of Kenya. She has five children
The Ulster University's Transitional Justice Institute (TJI), is a law-led multidisciplinary research institute of Ulster University which is physically located at the Jordanstown, and Magee campuses. It was created in 2003, making it the first and longest-established university research centre on this theme. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) Law at Ulster University was ranked 4th overall in the UK. Ulster was ranked first for impact in law with 100% of impact rated as world-leading, the only University to achieve this in law.
The Commission of Inquiry to Locate the Persons Disappeared during the Panchayat Period (1990–1991) is a truth commission established in Nepal in 1990 after the end of the autocratic Panchayat Regime by the first post-Panchayat Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattharai. The commission was set up to examine allegations of human rights violations and inquire about enforced disappearances during the Panchayat system from 1961 to 1990. A report was officially submitted to the government in 1991, but it was made public only in 1994. The commission identified 35 persons disappeared on about one hundred studied cases. However, no alleged perpetrators were judged.
The Truth and Reconciliation process in Cambodia refers to efforts to create other truth-seeking and reconciliation mechanisms in the country, in addition to the hybrid tribunals established by the Cambodian government and the United Nations in 2001.
The Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a truth commission created as part of the Lomé Peace Accord, which ended the 11-year civil war conflict in Sierra Leone in July 1999.
The National Reconciliation Commission was established in January 2002 by the Parliament of Ghana. The goal of the commission was to establish an "accurate, complete and historical record of violations and abuses of human rights inflicted on persons by public institutions and holders of public office during periods of unconstitutional government." The Commission was formed after a new democratic party won the elections in 2000. The Commission covered human rights violations in Ghana from 1957 to 1993. It looked into government abuses and military coups staged by former president Jerry Rawlings. The members of the Commission worked until the end of 2004.
The Commission of Inquiry into the Crimes and Misappropriations Committed by Ex-President Habré, His Accomplices and/or Accessories was established on December 29, 1990, by the President of Chad, Idriss Déby. Its goal was to investigate the "illegal detentions, assassinations, disappearances, torture, mistreatment, other attacks on the physical and mental integrity of persons; plus all violations of human rights, illicit narcotics trafficking and embezzlement of state funds between 1982 and 1990", when former President Hissène Habré was in power.
Two years after German reunification, the Commission of Inquiry for the Assessment of History and Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in Germany, which was a truth commission that lasted from 1992 to 1994, was established by the German government with the objective of looking at the history and the consequences of the former East German communist government. It released its report in 1994, but some felt that more could be investigated. This resulted in the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on Overcoming the Consequences of the SED Dictatorship in the Process of German Unity lasting from 1995 to 1998, which had the same objective, but investigated more thoroughly.
References
- ↑ "Distinguished Lecture Series" Archived 2012-03-18 at the Wayback Machine , Institute for Peace & Justice
- ↑ "Priscilla Hayner", FORA.tv
- ↑ "IDEA", International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
- ↑ "Distinguished Lecture Series" Archived 2012-03-18 at the Wayback Machine , Institute for Peace & Justice
