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Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. 309p. $55.00 cloth, $18.05 paper.
Melissa Nobles, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scholarship is substantial and growing on "transitional justice," that is, the legal and political decisions devised by incoming democratizing regimes to address the excesses of outgoing repressive regimes and the harms endured by their victims. Truth commissions are perhaps the most significant, if controversial, innovations in a democratizing regime's toolbox. Their significance is largely derived from their peculiarity. Since the early 1970s, approximately 21 commissions have been established in various countries. They have been defined as "bodies set up to investigate a past history of violations of human rights in a particular country-which can include violations by the military or other government forces or by armed opposition forces" (Priscilla Hayner, "Fifteen Truth Commissions-1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study," Human Rights Quarterly 16 [November 1994]: 597-655).
That definition usefully captures the basic purpose of truth commissions but does not include their other functions. They are quasi-judicial bodies designed to uncover truths, if not a singular or comprehensive truth. They are often modeled after courts of law and often employ evidentiary standards similar to legal standards, but they are not courts of law. Commission recommendations are not in themselves legally binding, although information revealed by such proceedings has been used in subsequent criminal trials, as in Argentina. Truth commissions turn criminal prosecution on its head by seeming to make truth seeking an end in itself. No less important, they are designed to provide a psychological catharsis, for both individuals and nations, and to lead to reconciliation. Yet, a tension emerges immediately from these two purposes. How can truth, without prosecution, lead to justice? And without justice, can...