Truth and Reconciliation Processes
How societies confront past atrocities through truth commissions — balancing justice, accountability, and the need to move forward.
Facing the Past to Build the Future
After mass violence — civil war, genocide, authoritarian repression — societies face an agonizing question: how do you acknowledge what happened, hold perpetrators accountable, and still build a shared future? Criminal trials alone often can't answer this. They focus on individual guilt, not systemic causes. They may convict a handful of leaders while leaving thousands of lower-level perpetrators unaddressed. And in fragile post-conflict states, aggressive prosecution can reignite violence.
Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) offer an alternative — not a replacement for justice, but a complement to it. Since the 1980s, over 40 countries have established truth commissions, making them one of the most widely adopted tools of transitional justice.