Extending Truth: Monitoring, Evaluating & Advocating Commission Recommendations

• In Event: Coding, Databases and Datasets in Transitional Justice Research

Abstract

Truth commissions, quasi-judicial bodies established by states around the world to address patterns of human rights abuses, have drawn increased scholarly attention in recent years. While much scholarship on truth commissions has neglected their recommendations, recent work investigates their production and implementation. Some of this research suggests an especially important role for recommendations in institutional creation. Leveraging novel data from 13 truth commissions in Latin America collected by the Beyond Words project, this paper gives insight into the different types of institutions, agencies, and programmes that commissions recommend states create. We reflect on the importance of bodies that monitor, evaluate and advocate for the implementation of recommendations as a potentially crucial mechanism in the implementation of all other recommendations. We use the more than 1,000 recommendations in this dataset to outline variation in these bodies’ powers, length of operations, structure and functions and test whether, and, if so, what role they may play as a tool for recommendation implementation and long-term truth commission impact.

Authors

• Adriana Rudling, Global Research Institute

• Elijah Tsai, International Justice Lab

• Kelebogile Zvobgo, College of William & Mary

• Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, University of Arkansas, Little Rock