Unspeakable Truths: Facing the Challence of Truth Commissions.

• Author: Severini, Valeria
• Position: FURTHER READING - Book review

UNSPEAKABLE TRUTHS: FACING THE CHALLENCE OF TRUTH COMMISSIONS Priscilla B. Hayner (Oxford: Routledge, 2000), 344 pages.

Unspeakable Truths explores the complex mechanisms and conditions that influence truth commissions--their establishment, mandate, operation and outcomes--as they investigate past human rights abuses. Hayner reviews the experiences of the twenty-one truth commissions established between 1974 and 2000 and examines the correlations between the truth-seeking process, transitional justice and the establishment of a working peace system after a period of domestic conflict.

Hayner successfully illustrates the complex problems faced by policymakers in their quest to reinstate order and maintain peace within civil society and the limitations encountered by human rights advocates in their pursuit of punishment for past abuses. The author provides rigorous theoretical analysis, numerous testimonials and well-documented references, through which she successfully draws the reader's attention not only to the array of interests and stakes specific to each society, but also to the recurrence of fundamental issues across societies.

In spite of the serious difficulties identified in the case studies, the...