Skip to main content
Voices

Truth Commissions and Transitional Justice

September 14, 2010
A Critical Assessment of 40 Truth Commissions and the State of Transitional Justice (September 7, 2010)
Download MP3

Priscilla Hayner’s recently updated book, Unspeakable Truths: Transitional Justice and the Challenge of Truth Commissions was the subject of a recent Open Society Justice Initiative panel.

In a sweeping review of 40 truth commissions, Priscilla Hayner delivers a definitive exploration of the global experience in official truth-seeking after widespread atrocities. When Unspeakable Truths was first published by Routledge in 2001, it quickly became a classic, helping to define the field of truth commissions and the broader arena of transitional justice.

This second edition is fully updated and expanded, covering 20 new commissions formed in the last ten years, analyzing new trends, and offering detailed charts that assess the impact of truth commissions and provide comparative information not previously available.

Placing the increasing number of truth commissions within the broader expansion in transitional justice, Unspeakable Truths surveys key developments and new thinking in reparations, international justice, healing from trauma, and other areas. This book challenges many widely-held assumptions and will help define how these issues are addressed in the future. Listen above.

Share

Read more

Event Recap

Financing Atrocity, Forging Accountability: New Strategies for International Justice

Economic crimes and grave violence often occur in tandem. But commercial companies involved in facilitating serious international crimes—or profiting from them—have rarely been held accountable by international courts.

June 7, 2019

A New Beginning

For a Better Future, Sudan Must Confront Its Past

A woman holding a flag

With Omar al-Bashir no longer in power, the temptation to move beyond his regime’s crimes is understandable. But unless Sudan grapples with its past, it risks trading one corrupt dictatorship for another.

May 10, 2019 | Ezzaddean El Safi

Event Recap

How Can We Fix the International Criminal Court?

Phil Clark urges a major rethink about how the International Criminal Court operates, especially in the Global South.

March 21, 2019

Subscribe to updates about Open Society’s work around the world

By entering your email address and clicking “Submit,” you agree to receive updates from the Open Society Foundations about our work. To learn more about how we use and protect your personal data, please view our privacy policy.