scholarly journals The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination in Truth Commission-Administered Accountability Initiatives

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-176
Author(s):  
ALISON BISSET
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Justice Practice ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation ◽  
Accountability Initiatives ◽  
Made In

AbstractIn recent times, transitional justice practice has increasingly seen truth commissions tasked with administering accountability programmes, distinct from, and in addition to, their traditional truth-seeking role. Such accountability schemes typically take the form of granting or recommending amnesty for those who disclose involvement in past crimes or facilitate reintegration on the basis of similar disclosures. Self-incriminating disclosures made in the course of traditional truth commission proceedings generally attract a robust set of legal safeguards. However, the protections within transitional accountability schemes administered by truth commissions tend to be less stringent. This article explores this anomaly, focusing particularly on the extent to which the privilege against self-incrimination is protected within truth commission-administered accountability programmes. It considers the programmes operated to date, and the levels of protection afforded, and demonstrates a lack of consistent practice in the safeguarding of individual rights within these programmes. It examines international legal standards on the privilege against self-incrimination and questions whether the procedures operated by accountability programmes can be reconciled with international norms in order to protect those who make self-incriminating disclosures within accountability initiatives. The article argues that a failure to ensure individual rights against self-incrimination risks compromising the efficacy of the programmes themselves and the contribution that they can make to long-term peace and reconciliation in transitional states.

Commissioning Truth and Reconciliation

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-131
Author(s):  
Claire Whitlinger
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Scientific

This chapter explores the relationship between the 2004 commemoration in Philadelphia, Mississippi and the Mississippi Truth Project, a state-wide project initially modelled after South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After reviewing the history of transitional justice efforts in the United States and the social scientific literature on how civil society-based truth commissions emerge, the chapter demonstrates how the 2004 commemoration and subsequent trial of Edgar Ray Killen precipitated the formation of a state-wide truth commission when previous efforts had failed. In short, this research finds that the commemoration mobilized mnemonic activists; concentrated local, state, and global resources; broadened political opportunity; and shifted the political culture of the state. Despite these developments—and years of project planning—the Mississippi Truth Project changed course in 2009, abandoning a South African-style truth commission in favour of grassroots memory projects and oral history collection. The chapter thus sheds lights on the possibilities and perils of pursuing non-state truth commissions.

Rule of Law, Security, and Transitional Justice in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Mihr ◽  
Chandra Sriram Lekha
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
The Many

States are expected to provide both security and justice for their citizens; one needs the other in order to work well. Yet when both are damaged or destroyed by war, state actors and outsiders alike tend to treat them as competing post-conflict priorities. Over the past twenty years, numerous processes have emerged to promote one or both, including “transitional justice”—from courts and truth commissions to community reconciliation—and programs to restore rule of law, reform the “security sector” (SSR) and disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate fighters into society (DDR). The many actors involved have just as many, sometimes competing, operational priorities, knowing that change is urgent, but necessarily long-term. This chapter examines the interaction of transitional justice, rule of law, SSR, and DDR, identifying key concepts, actors, processes, and challenges in pursuing change in each of these areas simultaneously.

Temporal Patterns in Latin American Truth Commission Recommendation Formulation and Implementation

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm ◽  
Dylan Wright
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Commission Recommendation ◽  
Latin American Countries ◽  
Global Initiatives

Abstract Remarkably little attention has focused on the formulation and implementation of truth commission (tc) recommendations. We use Skaar et al.’s original data on approximately 1000 recommendations produced by 13 truth commissions established in 11 Latin American countries between 1983 and 2014 to examine how recommendations and government responses to them have evolved over nearly 40 years. Truth commissions appear to be regularly influenced by major global transitional justice and human rights developments as they formulate recommendations. They target specific marginalised identity groups in their recommendations, particularly after major global initiatives to recognise the rights of such groups. Yet, governments often forego implementing such recommendations. Recommendations also appear to be shaped by whether the commission was established right after a political transition. Post-transitional commissions, which come five or more years after transition, issue more recommendations dealing with reparations of all sorts. However, whether overwhelmed by the number of proposals or more immune to pressure to enact such measures, governments implement these recommendations less regularly. These commissions also do not invoke the importance of reconciliation as transitional commissions do.

Engineering Grassroots Transitional Justice in the Balkans

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Di Lellio ◽  
Caitlin McCurn
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
The Subject

The initiative to establish a truth commission in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia (RECOM) presents a rich case study of the performance of the “toolkit” that transitional justice professionals propose on a global scale: an inclusive package that offers truth, justice, reconciliation and stability. Whether these goals could be achieved is the subject of a critical debate that questions overly ambitious projects of truth commissions, especially their sensitivity to local understandings and practices of transitional justice. We aim to contribute to this debate by examining the reception of RECOM in Kosovo, where most local actors remain either noncommittal or outright opposed to RECOM. What these actors share is the conviction that their own narratives be taken seriously, even when this means refusing the suppression of “truths” that can be divisive. We found that giving priority to “the local” implies more than adapting the received professional “toolkit”: it might require abandoning it.

scholarly journals Truth-Justice-Reparations Interaction Effects in Transitional Justice Practice: The Case of the ‘Valech Commission’ in Chile

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
CATH COLLINS
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
State Repression ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Holistic Approaches ◽  
Single Instance ◽  
Justice Practice ◽  
Past State

AbstractRecent thinking and practice in transitional justice suggest that victims and societies hold indivisible, perhaps even simultaneous, rights to truth, justice and reparations after gross human rights violations. This article analyses the advantages and drawbacks of such holistic approaches to transitional justice, through a case study of Chile's second official truth commission, the ‘Valech Commission’. The article illustrates the politics of ongoing contestation about authoritarian era crimes in Latin America, showing how and why the commission was designed to deliver on certain truth-and-reparations obligations towards survivors of past state repression, while attempting to explicitly decouple truth revelations from judicial consequences. It also discusses the implications of associating truth-telling and reparations in a single instance, and in doing so contributes to debates about the potentially contradictory or counterproductive outcomes that may arise from the yoking together of truth, justice and reparations functions in transitional justice policy design.

Looking Forward, Looking Back: The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Stanton
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Residential Schools ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Reconciliation Commission ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commissions ◽  
The Government

AbstractWhen we talk about truth and reconciliation commissions, we are accustomed to speaking of “transitional justice” mechanisms used in emerging democracies addressing histories of grave injustices. Public inquiries are usually the state response to past injustice in the Canadian context. The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is the result of a legal settlement agreement involving the government, representatives of indigenous peoples who attended residential schools for a period lasting more than a century, and the churches that operated those schools. Residential schools have been addressed in a series of public inquiries in Canada, culminating in the TRC. I argue that some of Canada's previous public inquiries, particularly with respect to indigenous issues, have strongly resembled truth commissions, yet this is the first time that an established democracy has called a body investigating past human-rights violations a “truth commission.” This article considers some of the reasons for seeking a truth commission in an established democracy and looks to a previous public inquiry led by Thomas Berger, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, for some useful strategies for the TRC as it pursues its mandate. In particular, I suggest that a commission can perform a social function by using its process to educate the broader public about the issue before it.

scholarly journals Gendering transitional justice processes in Africa: a feminist advocacy approach to truth commissions

2021 ◽  
Vol 9s2 ◽  
pp. 35-52
Author(s):  
Elias O. Opongo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Human Rights Violations ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Highlighting the place and role of women in transitional justice processes draws attention to two main aspects: the need for a holistic approach to transitional justice processes, and paying attention to the sensitive nature of gender-based violence in the whole cycle of truth commissions from articulation of the mandate of the commission, composition of the commissioners, categorisation of crimes, to the writing and implementation of the final report. A feminist advocacy approach to transitional justice is framed under a critical feminist strategy that draws attention to diverse forms of human rights violations against women in situations of conflict; structures of exclusion of women�s concerns; the agency and presence of women in truth commission processes. Hence, discourse on gendering transitional justice processes has recently emerged, especially given that women have been targeted in conflict situations, giving rise to sexual and gender-based violence, and indiscriminate killing of women despite their non-combatant role. This article discusses the extent of marginalisation of cases of women�s gross human rights violations in truth commission processes, while acknowledging positive attempts made so far, through critical feminism, to include women�s concerns in these processes.

scholarly journals Utopia and the doubters: truth, transition and the law

Legal Studies ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colm Campbell ◽  
Catherine Turner
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Truth Commission ◽  
Legal Standards ◽  
Squaring The Circle ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Intuitive Appeal ◽  
Legal Model ◽  
Fact Finding

Truth commissions have an intuitive appeal in squaring the circle of peace and accountability post-conflict, but some claims for their benefits risk utopianism. Law provides both opportunities and pitfalls for post-conflict justice initiatives, including the operation of truth commissions. Rather than adopting a heavily legalised approach, derived from Public Inquiries, an ‘holistic legal model’, employing social science fact-finding methodologies to explore pattern of violations, and drawing appropriately on legal standards, may provide the best option for a possible Northern Ireland truth commission.

The psychological correlates of transitional justice in Rwanda: A long-term assessment.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 774-784
Author(s):  
Serge Caparos ◽  
Eugène Rutembesa ◽  
Emmanuel Habimana ◽  
Isabelle Blanchette
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Psychological Correlates

The role of Constitutional Courts in Transitional Justice: Colombia and South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (15) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadiehezka Paola Palencia Tejedor
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Structural Analysis ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Political Background ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Peace And Reconciliation

This work focuses on a compared analysis of the South Afri- can decision related to the “peace and reconciliation act” of this country’s Parliament, and the Colombian decision regarding the amendment of the constitution called “The juridical framework for the peace.” Turning to the structure, it is developed in three major topics: 1. It provides a brief of the historical context, political background and an overview of the two decisions.2. It gives a structural analysis of the powers that each Court has and the nature of the constitutional mechanism through which both Courts decided the constitutionality of the said norms 3. It presents a critical analysis on the similarities and differences between the two systems and judgments. It presents some con- clusions. 

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