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Key Text Reckoning for Past Wrongs: Truth Commissions and War Crimes Tribunals

Author: P Harris and B Reilly
Date: 1998
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Summary

In the aftermath of conflicts, tensions between former disputants can only be dispersed by confronting and reckoning with the past. It is important to rebuild confidence in democracy and eliminate human rights abuses. Two mechanisms that can help achieve this are truth commissions and war crimes tribunals. How important are they to peace building?

This chapter in ‘Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators’, published by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), examines the roles of truth commissions and war crimes tribunals in post-conflict reconciliation. It draws on examples from South Africa, Central and South America, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to demonstrate how each mechanism contributes to justice during the transition to democracy. Truth commissions are bodies established primarily to investigate human rights abuses, whereas war crimes tribunals allow for the prosecution of those who have committed violations. The two mechanisms are complementary, and help build the foundations for a democratic society based on the rule of law.

Truth commissions can play an important role in maintaining a peace process during the early period of transition from conflict to legitimate government. They gather evidence, which may be used in subsequent prosecutions, and sometimes make recommendations on reforming the security sector. War crimes tribunals are often established later in the peace process. By identifying human rights violators, they can help diffuse ethnic tensions. They fulfil victims’ need for justice and help put an end to the notion of impunity. However, the two mechanisms also face limitations:

Potential witnesses may fear reprisals and be deterred from giving evidence.
Truth commissions are not usually given an active role in implementing their recommendations, and war crimes tribunals have limited powers to arrest those they indict.
It is rare that either mechanism is permitted to investigate or prosecute abuses that occur after they have been set up. Thus they are not effective in stopping conflicts or keeping a check on new regimes.
Without real commitment to reform, truth commissions are susceptible to being used as a political tool, and war crimes tribunals are less effective where obstructed by national politics.

Written before the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the chapter concludes by outlining moves towards such a court. It predicts that post-conflict societies may soon have a permanent international forum from which to seek justice. In the interim, however, there are ways in which the performance of the two justice mechanisms could be improved:

Enlisting the support of governments in implementing the reforms recommended by truth commissions, and enforcing tribunal indictments and rulings
Providing adequate resources and allotting sufficient time to achieve their aims
Appointing impartial staff and maintaining credibility by investigating and prosecuting all sides equally
Ensuring a wide-enough mandate for objectives to be met
Striking a balance between confidentiality in truth commission investigations, so as to protect witnesses, and guaranteeing fairness and public disclosure of findings
Establishing permanent human rights bodies to guard against future abuses.

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Source: Harris, P., and Reilly, B. (eds.) 1998, 'Reckoning for Past Wrongs: Truth Commissions and War Crimes Tribunals', Section 4.10 in 'Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiators', International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm, Sweden
Author: Ben Reilly , ben.reilly@anu.edu.au
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, http://www.idea.int/