The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions

The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions
Author: Jeremy Sarkin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Human rights
ISBN: 9781780687940

"The Global Impact and Legacy of Truth Commissions' emerges at a time when there is a confluence of two trends. The first is a growing critique of truth commissions as being unresponsive to the socio-economic needs of transitional societies as part of growing criticism of transitional justice as a whole. The second is the increasing use, salience, professionalism and ambition of truth commissions. Thus, the book is published at a time when truth commissions are being both doubted and reified like never before. In this context, the book's purpose is to understand the impact and legacy of these institutions over the past fifty years. Bringing together many prominent voices on the topic, this book investigates what kind of impact and legacy (possibly 100) truth commissions have had on the societies in which they have taken place, and for future truth commissions the world over"--

The Brazilian Truth Commission

The Brazilian Truth Commission
Author: Nina Schneider
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2019-05-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1789200040

Bringing together some of the world’s leading scholars, practitioners, and human-rights activists, this groundbreaking volume provides the first systematic analysis of the 2012–2014 Brazilian National Truth Commission. While attentive to the inquiry’s local and national dimensions, it offers an illuminating transnational perspective that considers the Commission’s Latin American regional context and relates it to global efforts for human rights accountability, contributing to a more general and critical reassessment of truth commissions from a variety of viewpoints.

International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War

International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2000-11-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0309171733

The end of the Cold War has changed the shape of organized violence in the world and the ways in which governments and others try to set its limits. Even the concept of international conflict is broadening to include ethnic conflicts and other kinds of violence within national borders that may affect international peace and security. What is not yet clear is whether or how these changes alter the way actors on the world scene should deal with conflict: Do the old methods still work? Are there new tools that could work better? How do old and new methods relate to each other? International Conflict Resolution After the Cold War critically examines evidence on the effectiveness of a dozen approaches to managing or resolving conflict in the world to develop insights for conflict resolution practitioners. It considers recent applications of familiar conflict management strategies, such as the use of threats of force, economic sanctions, and negotiation. It presents the first systematic assessments of the usefulness of some less familiar approaches to conflict resolution, including truth commissions, "engineered" electoral systems, autonomy arrangements, and regional organizations. It also opens up analysis of emerging issues, such as the dilemmas facing humanitarian organizations in complex emergencies. This book offers numerous practical insights and raises key questions for research on conflict resolution in a transforming world system.

International Human Rights Institutions, Tribunals, and Courts

International Human Rights Institutions, Tribunals, and Courts
Author: Gerd Oberleitner
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2018-10-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9789811052057

This book introduces readers to the major human rights institutions, courts, and tribunals and critically assesses their legacy as well as the promise they hold for realizing human rights globally, and the challenges they face in doing so. It traces the rationale of setting up international institutions, courts, and tribunals with the aim of ensuring respect for international human rights law and presents their historic development, and critically analyzes their contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights. At the same time, it asks which promises old and new (and envisaged) human rights institutions hold for safeguarding human rights in light of continuing violations and recent global trends in human rights and politics. The first section presents institutions created within the framework of the United Nations. The second part of the volume assesses how international criminal tribunals have reframed human rights violations as individual criminal acts. The third part of the volume is devoted to established and emerging regional human rights bodies and courts around the world.

Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Truth Commissions

Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Truth Commissions
Author: Anita Ferrara
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2014-09-19
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317804651

In 1990, after the end of the Pinochet regime, the newly-elected democratic government of Chile established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate and report on some of the worst human rights violations committed under the seventeen-year military dictatorship. The Chilean TRC was one of the first truth commissions established in the world. This book examines whether and how the work of the Chilean TRC contributed to the transition to democracy in Chile and to subsequent developments in accountability and transformation in that country. The book takes a long term view on the Chilean TRC asking to what extent and how the truth commission contributed to the development of the transitional justice measures that ensued, and how the relationship with those subsequent developments was established over time.It argues that, contrary to the views and expectations of those who considered that the Chilean TRC was of limited success, that the Chilean TRC has, in fact, over the longer term, played a key role as an enabler of justice and a means by which ethical and institutional transformation has occurred within Chile. With the benefit of this historical perspective, the book concludes that the impact of truth commissions in general needs to be carefully reviewed in light of the Chilean experience. This book will be of great interest and use to students and scholars of conflict resolution, criminal international law, and comparative legal systems in Latin America.

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One: Summary

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One: Summary
Author: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
Total Pages: 673
Release: 2015-07-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 1459410696

This is the Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy. This report lays bare a part of Canada's history that until recently was little-known to most non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Commission discusses the logic of the colonization of Canada's territories, and why and how policy and practice developed to end the existence of distinct societies of Aboriginal peoples. Using brief excerpts from the powerful testimony heard from Survivors, this report documents the residential school system which forced children into institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, required to discard their clothing in favour of institutional wear, given inadequate food, housed in inferior and fire-prone buildings, required to work when they should have been studying, and subjected to emotional, psychological and often physical abuse. In this setting, cruel punishments were all too common, as was sexual abuse. More than 30,000 Survivors have been compensated financially by the Government of Canada for their experiences in residential schools, but the legacy of this experience is ongoing today. This report explains the links to high rates of Aboriginal children being taken from their families, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and high rates of suicide. The report documents the drastic decline in the presence of Aboriginal languages, even as Survivors and others work to maintain their distinctive cultures, traditions, and governance. The report offers 94 calls to action on the part of governments, churches, public institutions and non-Aboriginal Canadians as a path to meaningful reconciliation of Canada today with Aboriginal citizens. Even though the historical experience of residential schools constituted an act of cultural genocide by Canadian government authorities, the United Nation's declaration of the rights of aboriginal peoples and the specific recommendations of the Commission offer a path to move from apology for these events to true reconciliation that can be embraced by all Canadians.

The Era of Transitional Justice

The Era of Transitional Justice
Author: Paul Gready
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2010-10-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1136902201

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Transitional Justice and the ‘Disappeared’ of Northern Ireland

Transitional Justice and the ‘Disappeared’ of Northern Ireland
Author: Lauren Dempster
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2019-06-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351239368

This book employs a transitional justice lens to address the ‘disappearances’ that occurred during the Northern Ireland conflict – or ‘Troubles’ – and the post-conflict response to these ‘disappearances.’ Despite an extensive literature around ‘dealing with the past’ in Northern Ireland, as well as a substantial body of scholarship on ‘disappearances’ in other national contexts, there has been little scholarly scrutiny of ‘disappearances’ in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Although the Good Friday Agreement brought relative peace to Northern Ireland, no provision was made for the establishment of some form of overarching truth and reconciliation commission aimed at comprehensively addressing the legacy of violence. Nevertheless, a mechanism to recover the remains of the ‘disappeared’ – the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) – was established, and has in fact proven to be quite effective. As a result, the reactions of key constituencies to the ‘disappearances’ can be used as a prism through which to comprehensively explore issues of relevance to transitional justice scholars and practitioners. Pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, and based on extensive empirical research, this book provides a multifaceted exploration of the responses of these constituencies to the practice of ‘disappearing.’ It engages with transitional justice themes including silence, memory, truth, acknowledgement, and apology. Key issues examined include the mobilisation efforts of families of the ‘disappeared,’ efforts by a (former) non-state armed group to address its legacy of violence, the utility of a limited immunity mechanism to incentivise information provision, and the interplay between silence and memory in the shaping of a collective, societal understanding of the ‘disappeared.’

Unspeakable Truths 2e

Unspeakable Truths 2e
Author: Priscilla B. Hayner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2010-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135245584

This book is a definitive exploration of truth commissions around the world and the anguish, injustice, and the legacy of hate they are meant to absolve.

Dignity Rights

Dignity Rights
Author: Erin Daly
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2020-10-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0812224752

Originally published in 2012, Dignity Rights is the first book to explore the constitutional law of dignity around the world. In it, Erin Daly shows how dignity has come not only to define specific interests like the right to humane treatment or to earn a living wage, but also to protect the basic rights of a person to control his or her own life and to live in society with others. Daly argues that, through the right to dignity, courts are redefining what it means to be human in the modern world. As described by the courts, the scope of dignity rights marks the outer boundaries of state power, limiting state authority to meet the demands of human dignity. As a result, these cases force us to reexamine the relationship between the individual and the state and, in turn, contribute to a new and richer understanding of the role of the citizen in modern democracies. This updated edition features a new preface by the author, in which she articulates how, over the past decade, dignity rights cases have evolved to incorporate the convergence of human rights and environmental rights that we have seen at the international level and in domestic constitutions.