The Human Right to Truth and Truth Commissions
509 O'Brian Hall | UB North Campus | June 6 and 7, 2025
FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC
The Center for Information Integrity is honored to sponsor the conference, The Human Right to Truth and Truth Commissions. The event examines how the emergence of the victim's right to the truth marks a revolution in the relationship between law and historical understanding. Per the traditional conception, the legal truth was to be determined in judicial procedures governed by rigid rules, whose main goal was to safeguard the rights of the accused. An alternative conception emerged with the Nunca Mas (Never Again) Report from September 1984 drafted by the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Spanish: Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas, CONADEP) - the first successful truth commission in history.
In this novel view, victims and society as a whole have a distinctive right to truth, and this right is primarily satisfied through the establishment of the Truth Commission and other analogous institutions. These commissions engage individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, aiming not only to elucidate specific events but also to reconstruct the underlying causes and contexts of recent periods marked by widespread violence and systemic human rights violations. All international and domestic instruments that enshrine the right to the truth underscore the aspiration to facilitate transitions toward more democratic and peaceful societies.
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the landmark report, with the wealth of experience from over 35 Truth Commissions worldwide, it is imperative to evaluate the impact of this shift in the legal paradigm within transitional societies. It is crucial to assess whether this change has yielded the anticipated results and if transitional societies have witnessed positive changes in their political processes and the protection of victims’ rights. This workshop aims to undertake such an evaluation through the perspectives of an interdisciplinary panel of experts. Drawing from fields such as law, sociology, history, political science, and regional expertise in nations undergoing transitional processes involving truth commissions or analogous institutions, our goal is to address pivotal questions and chart pathways for future research that can inform ongoing or forthcoming transitional processes.
The conference is sponsored by The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy and the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ School of Law. Additional support provided by UB Office of International Education, UB Center for Information Integrity, and UB Department of History.
