Week 7
Currently, I am assisting with a report that GSF is submitting to stakeholders in South Sudan next week. I spent some time researching best practices of truth commissions around the world, specifically the extent to which they included survivors in their operations.
Truth commissions are temporary, official bodies convened to investigate human rights abuses perpetrated over a period of conflict, especially by a state regime. A mechanism of transitional justice, truth commissions collect testimonies from survivors to document the causes and consequences of human rights abuses on a society. Truth commissions will generally produce a final report establishing the facts of a conflict and outlining recommendations both to address survivors’ needs and to prevent the recurrence of similar abuses. Some commissions are authorized to provide reparations to survivors directly or to grant amnesty to wrongdoers.
Many countries have established truth commissions. For example, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1995–2002) was tasked with uncovering abuses perpetrated during the country’s 45 years of apartheid. Guatemala’s Commission for Historical Clarification (1997–1999) investigated human rights violations during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. In 2022, Sweden appointed a truth commission to examine its government’s policies and actions toward the Sámi people.
Truth commissions tend to be more effective when they are formed with input from survivors themselves. For example, while Morocco’s Equity and Reconciliation Commission (2004–2005) was imperfect, it is notable because several commissioners (including the head commissioner) were former political prisoners of the very regime that established the Commission. Aside from the symbolic nature of these appointments, the presence of survivors in the Commission ideally would have increased the likelihood that the Commission would operate according to survivors’ needs. In other words, the Commission policies were created by survivors for fellow survivors.
Nepal is an unfortunate counterexample. Last year and earlier this year, survivor advocacy groups have lobbied the government to use a transparent process to appoint commissioners for the country’s recently re-established Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In May 2025, the selection committee announced a shortlist of candidates that survivor advocacy groups decried as politically motivated. Because the selection process was opaque, completely detached from the requests that survivors had articulated, survivor groups have announced that they are boycotting the TRC altogether. For survivors who have waited decades for redress, the TRC’s failure to heed their voices at such an early stage must be more than disappointing.
More to come next week.