During the last years, and with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa with one of the most known commissions, a number of truth commissions have been established . Though, it is not sufficient to analyse truth commissions within the timeframe of the last two or three decades, or to consider truth commissions as an isolated and recent phenomena. The mandate of a truth commission is normally to deal with gross human rights violations and to contribute to a reconciliation process. The foundation/condition for truth commissions to address this mandate stretches back to the recognition of human rights and justice and has to be considered on the background of the way in which the Nuremberg trials established crimes against humanity and individual human rights in international law. The Cold War froze the advances of Nuremberg and was simultaneously characterized by internal conflicts that targeted civilian non-combatants. In the wake of these internal conflicts, amnesty laws came and in response, truth commissions were established to provide some record of the violations of the past.

The project, partly organized as a research network, evaluates the ability of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to write a definitive truth of the authoritarian era and to contribute to building the rule of law. By comparing the South African experience with that in Latin America, where the room for maneuver of truth commissions has been more limited, knowledge of the strength and limits of Truth commissions is gained.

By scrutinizing individual Truth Commissions, the project will investigate the amount of international support, the importance of international support and the background for international support to these national commissions (institutions or bodies). The main question the project deals with is how and why Truth Commissions are established to provide some records of the past? Which elements and conditions have to be fulfilled in order to make the work of a truth commission possible? Important is here that the question of truth commissions can be approached by analysing the importance of individual human rights in international law, but by deliberately selecting cases from different areas like Africa, Latin America and Asia, the project will show that the question of truth commission and their work can’t be limited to that of the international recognition of individual human rights, but has to be analysed in the context of the society and the specific conditions in the individual countries which choose (maybe they are forced to do so?) to establish a truth commission.

Additionally, the project deals with the examination of the increasing role of international human rights tribunals, especially the International Criminal Court and the UN Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

For more information, please contact: Jochen Peters