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Copyright of Revista Española de la Transparencia is the property of Asociacion de Profesionales de la Transparencia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Española de la Transparencia is the property of Asociacion de Profesionales de la Transparencia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The concept of memory laws has been gaining attention for the past few years. It is commonly defined as legal provisions governing history, including repressive measures against the denial of past crimes. Memory laws also include stateapprovedinterpretations of crucial historical events, the law establishing state holidays and commemoration of victims of past atrocities. The laws have a big part in transition and reconciliation, however, they may also lead to a distortion of historical truth. The main purpose of the paper is to analyse the coexistence between memory laws and the right to the truth in the context of human rights violations and international crimes. For that reason, firstly, the legal nature of the truth and memory under international law is evaluated. Secondly, the Rwandan legal provisions on genocide are analysed and comments are made on the elements of the Rwandan traditions concerning the past. That example serves to show the danger of the politicization of memory laws. Finally, the paper is an attempt to answer the question whether the conjunction of the right to the truth and memory laws is necessary.

The concept of memory laws has been gaining attention for the past few years. It is commonly defined as legal provisions governing history, including repressive measures against the denial of past crimes. Memory laws also include stateapproved interpretations of crucial historical events, the law establishing state holidays and commemoration of victims of past atrocities. The laws have a big part in transition and reconciliation, however, they may also lead to a distortion of historical truth. The main purpose of the paper is to analyse the coexistence between memory laws and the right to the truth in the context of human rights violations and international crimes. For that reason, firstly, the legal nature of the truth and memory under international law is evaluated. Secondly, the Rwandan legal provisions on genocide are analysed and comments are made on the elements of the Rwandan traditions concerning the past. That example serves to show the danger of the politicization of memory laws. Finally, the paper is an attempt to answer the question whether the conjunction of the right to the truth and memory laws is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El artículo analiza el derecho a la verdad en la jurisprudencia de la CIDH a la luz de las teorías de la justicia. En la primera parte se argumenta que, aunque el concepto de justicia transicional no puede asimilarse a ninguna de las teorías de la justicia existentes, se puede definir como un concepto multidimensional que combina varios elementos de dichas teorías. Tras explicar la medida en qué varias dimensiones de las teorías de la justicia se ven reflejadas en el derecho a la verdad tal y como lo define la CIDH, se subrayan algunos límites de la conceptualización de la Corte, en particular el hecho de que ignora la dimensión procedimental de la justicia. Así pues, la conclusión presenta un argumento a favor de la deliberación democrática, lo cual nos obliga a repensar el papel de los tribunales en la construcción de un relato sobre el pasado.

Copyright of Revista de Derecho Politico is the property of Editorial UNED and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The right to the truth is often mentioned in conjunction with missing persons cases and is recognized for its propensity to function as an enabling right, helping victims and families to claim their rights. While families, survivors, communities, specialist agencies, NGOs and international organizations readily invoke the right to the truth, the terminology used in the context can be ambiguous, overlapping, mandate-driven or strategic. This contribution reflects on the applicable legal spheres, use of approaches and practices in the context of missing persons investigations and claims made towards the realization of the right to the truth. The article clarifies the legal landscape to underscore what is meant by the right to the truth and how it may function as the starting point for the realization of other rights in the context of missing persons. Further, it examines and dissects conceptualizations of missing persons and resolution efforts; and identifies what actions help realize the right to the truth and to what extent. It argues the merits of a broad definition of missing persons while urging those engaged in solving missing persons cases to be candid in respect of the truth-seeking aspect they may be able to advance. This is by no means a trivial inquiry, for families of the missing rely on the assistance of the law and relevant agencies to further the realization of their right to the truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safeguarding the right to the truth has become crucial in dealing with systematic violations of human rights. Especially in contexts of transition to democracy, telling the truth is considered of utmost importance for fighting against impunity and promoting peace. Nevertheless, scholars have paid little attention to the judicial implementation of this right and, in particular, to the value of judicial protection of the right to the truth. The article aims to fill this gap by discussing the Juicios por la Verdad (the Truth Trials), a unique experience promoted by the Argentinian civil society in the wake of the military dictatorship. Specifically, it investigates the impact of the judicial recognition of the right to the truth on both the victims' lives and society's attempt to come to terms with the past. The analysis shows that the right to the truth may serve as a tool for knowledge, acknowledgment, strengthening the rule of law and, to an extent, for justice.

The peace deal between the Colombian Government and the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia established the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Repetition, comprised of the Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition Commission, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, and the Unit for the Search of Persons Presumed Disappeared in the context and because of the armed conflict. This set of mechanisms guarantee the rights to truth, justice, reparation, and measures of non-recurrence as stipulated in the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Armed Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace. One of its most critical and imperative aspects is the right to truth for the victims of serious human rights violations and their relatives. This right, conceived primarily as a human right, coexists with the other three pillars of transitional justice, interacting and complementing them. This paper aims to define the content of the right to truth in the three bodies that make up the Comprehensive System, to conclude that, although each mechanism pursues a different kind of truth, there is a bond of complementarity between them, addressing the rights of its victims and their needs, structuring a collective memory on the war in Colombia.

This essay explores how the drafters of international humanitarian law (IHL) incorporated the past into their work between 1860 and 2020, and how they approached time, memory and history as indicators for this view of the past. Its sources consist of the complete series of general conventional and customary IHL instruments as well as the leading commentaries on them. For the IHL view of time, the impact of legal principles on the perception of time is scrutinized. Balancing nonretroactivity against customary international law and the humanity principle broadens the temporal scope towards the past, while balancing legal forgetting against imprescriptibility and State succession broadens it towards the future. For the IHL view of memory, dead persons and cultural heritage are seen as crucial vectors. Attention to the fate of the dead has been a constant hallmark of IHL, while care for cultural heritage has an even longer pedigree. For the IHL view of history, the essay highlights that the International Committee of the Red Cross has consistently advocated State duties to the war dead and has organized an archival infrastructure to satisfy the need – later converted into a right – of families and society to search for the historical truth about them. Furthermore, the responses of IHL drafters to five major historical challenges are examined. First, while in the realm of war crimes impunity prevailed for most of history, after World War II a system of war crimes trials was mounted, culminating in the International Criminal Court. Second, soul-searching about the atrocities of World War II, including the Holocaust, helped create Geneva Convention IV of 1949, which protects civilians in wartime. Third, the human rights idea was not fully embraced by IHL treaty drafters until 1968. Fourth, the IHL approach to civil wars was slow and incomplete, but its appearance in 1949 and coming of age in 1977 were breakthroughs nevertheless. Fifth, colonial conflicts were not recognized as international wars in 1949, when this could have had considerable impact, but only in 1977, when decolonization was largely over. In all cases, the responses to these historical challenges came after long delays. Clearly, the IHL view of the past has to be assessed on a transgenerational scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently municipal courts have found that foreign states do not enjoy jurisdictional immunity with respect to civil claims involving serious violations of international law within the forum state's territory during armed conflict. This article assesses the recent judgments' potential impact, taking into account previous court practice and international human rights jurisprudence. It concludes that an exception to immunity in the above circumstances where no alternative judicial remedies exist for the victims has a basis in previous practice and may be required to give effect to international human rights obligations. A recognition by the foreign state of an individual victims' right to bring a claim before that state's courts could provide the victims with reparation in the form of satisfaction. Where no such possibility exists, a limited exception to the rule of state immunity would ensure the victims' right to access to court and to the truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Victims (direct and indirect) of gross human rights violations have implicit recognition in terms of a duty of effective investigation and other focused principles. In the context of migration and extraordinary rendition, this duty gives rise to a particular problem of investigation in a multi-national situation, where, arguably, an effective investigation requires elements of transnational cooperation. Recent decisions by the European Court of Human Rights, in particular Güzelyurtlu v Turkey and Cyprus, have developed legal principles relevant to this situation. This article probes how the Court's jurisprudence reflects and accommodates the need for those across-border investigations in order to meet the criteria of an effective investigation and, with it, the right to the truth. It does so with additional reference to international legal norms that attach to enforced disappearance, as the right to the truth has found most fervent expression in this human rights context thereby serving to further illustrate the two foci of this contribution: transnational fact-finding in relation to migration and extraordinary renditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the meanings in which the category "truth" is used within the discourse of the institutions that make up the Integral System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition. It was created after the peace agreement between the Colombian State and the FARC-EP guerrilla group (2016). It seeks to warn the complexities involved in the treatment of truth in the framework of transitional justice processes. This cartographic proposal will make it possible to locate the discussions and distinguish their main problems. For this purpose, the information was counter-checked from many sources: rules, institutional documents, and the critical discourse of human rights, especially that of the victims of the conflict. The study concludes that there is no single approach to truth among the institutions of the system. While the Commission for the Clarification of the Truth and the Unit for the Search for Persons Reported Missing have a predominant concept of truth as correspondence, in the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and its member organizations, there is an interaction between truth as consensus and as correspondence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Derecho Penal is the property of Cuadernos de Derecho Penal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The right to the truth about gross human rights violations is gradually becoming more firmly entrenched in international human rights law. However, the content and contours of the right to the truth are not without controversy. Some of the most pressing issues that have arisen are the extent of society's right to the truth, the scope of the truth that it pursues (fact-finding or broader historical truth) and the relationship between truth seeking and official acknowledgment. This article turns to multidisciplinary research about truth seeking and memory with regard to gross human rights violations, which provides rich insights into the role of truth in the aftermath of mass atrocities that can shed light on the possible implications of the right to the truth. It thus provides a critical reflection on the right to the truth, in order to consider how it could perform a valuable function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that while the right to the truth has come to the fore over the last few decades, victims around the world have not really felt its practical effect. It is argued that for the right to have real impact, human rights violations need to be documented and investigated, and the victims identified. This has, however, been limited in the past for a variety of reasons, including the inability to document violations to the extent needed. The article therefore considers how scientific and technological tools can help with this. It is argued that while the right to the truth has been assisted by the advent of DNA analysis, this tool is often not available in large parts of the world because of a lack of resources. Thus, it is argued that other types of techniques can, and must, be used to identify victims of human rights abuses. The article considers how ordinary people and NGOs can use a range of other tools, including a variety of apps and social media, to collect evidence of human rights violations, find people and fight impunity. The article also discusses why there ought therefore to be a greater reliance on open-source information and how it can be used to improve documentation and investigations of human rights violations. Examples that best embody the advantages and disadvantages of these scientific and technological tools are provided, as well as ideas on how to overcome the challenges they present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Too little is provided, not only in international law, but also by the United Nations, for victims around the world. This article therefore argues that a new paradigm is needed. It uses the conflict in Syria since 2011, specifically focusing on how enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions have been used, to examine these questions. It has been reported that at least 150,000 people have been affected by these practices, but the number may be as high as a million. Because the state has used these practices methodically, they amount to a widespread and systemic attack on the civilian population and, therefore, to crimes against humanity. While the Syrian regime is primarily responsible, non-state actors have also been committing these types of crimes. The article discusses the general processes that have been set up to deal with the conflict in international law and by the United Nations in places like Syria. It finds that very little has been done to end the conflict in Syria, other than mediation. The article then reviews the international processes dealing with disappearances and detentions in Syria that families can report to, and the role these institutions have played so far. It again finds that very little has been achieved. The article also examines other countries where processes have been set up to deal with missing and disappeared persons, such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cyprus, and Georgia, to learn the lessons from these past processes for the Syrian situation. It is argued that, generally when mass atrocities occur, the UN on rare occasions will create an accountability process, but never creates a process that focuses on the needs of victims: finding their loved ones, getting them released from custody if they are alive, or finding the truth about what happened to them and where their remains are. The article therefore argues that a new mechanism is needed for Syria (but also for other places) to get people released, and to find information on others whose whereabouts are unknown due to the conflict and/or the mass human rights abuses. It contends that the mechanism could be set up by the UN, and if not, by a regional actor such as the European Union, or by several states. It is reasoned that the mechanism ought to have a Board made up of a representative each from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID), the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions (WGAD) and a Syrian organisation, elected each year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013, Russia passed two laws aimed at the LGBT community, including the law that provided administrative penalties for 'propaganda of non-traditional relationships'. The laws generated strong international criticism, and were widely seen as the actions of an insulated authoritarian leadership against domestic critics. While domestic factors were very significant, they are insufficient to explain Russia's legislation, for two reasons: first, because the timing of Russia's reforms coincided with the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Britain and France; and second, because Russia had been working for years to promote the heterosexual 'traditional family' in international bodies such as the United Nations. This paper examines the respective roles of domestic and international factors in Russia's laws on same-sex relationships, and situates Russia's messaging on LGBTQ issues in the context of the literatures on global norm diffusion and the 'right to the truth'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Direito e Práxis is the property of Editora da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (EdUERJ) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista CES Derecho is the property of Universidad CES and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article examines the use of state secrecy in court litigation concerning alleged gross human rights violations committed in the struggle against terrorism, focusing specifically on cases of extraordinary rendition and comparing the performance of courts in the United States, in Italy and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The article explains that national courts have validated the assertion by national governments of the state secret privilege in litigation involving cases of extraordinary rendition, ensuring de facto immunity to individuals involved in gross human rights abuses. On the contrary, it underlines that the ECtHR has pierced the veil covering these ‘deep secrets’, undertaking a strict scrutiny of acts of extraordinary rendition to torture committed by governments in the name of national security. As the article argues, the success of the ECtHR can be explained by a number of reasons, including distance, time and institutional design. In conclusion, the case law of the ECtHR on secrecy and national security confirms the continuing importance of supranational courts as instruments of external oversight on the human rights practice of European states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay critically examines the intersections between news media and human rights in the context of the existing human rights framework. A survey of the fundamental provisions of international human rights law and of the evolving case law of human rights organs relating to media freedom and responsibilities reveals that existing gaps and underspecified obligations render problematic the normative guidance offered by the framework in addressing the pertinent human rights issues. However, this is part of the story. The problems associated with normative guidance are compounded by media practitioners’ contending approaches on the role of the media as “promoters of human rights.” The interplay between these factors is then examined through the prism of the two communities’ converging commitment to “truth-seeking.” This commitment can provide entry points to a more constructive engagement between the news media and the human rights community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Truth-finding trials (juicios por la verdad) constitute a novel solution devised by the Argentine judicial system to cope with crimes committed by the past military dictatorship. This mechanism uses criminal courts as well as criminal procedure in order to investigate the truth about the dictatorship's crimes; however, the trials allow judges neither to establish criminal responsibility nor to punish the perpetrators of crimes. This limitation is due to the inability, imposed by the Full Stop and Due Obedience Laws, to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes.From the perspective of criminal law, truth-finding trials present two problematic features: firstly, their creation and regulation are set by judges, which has caused the development of many non-homogeneous local solutions and, secondly, their hybrid nature, which entails a possible subversion of conventional forms and goals in the context of the criminal trial.The paper also describes the current situation, since the Argentine impunity laws were declared unconstitutional and criminal proceedings reopened. The new framework provokes questions about the relationship between the reopened criminal trials and the truth-finding investigations, not only with regard to evidentiary issues but also with respect to the reason why the truth-finding investigations are still held.Finally, the shift from a non-punitive approach to the current full criminal accountability seems to suggest that truth-finding trials were merely a temporary solution, while the notion of the full prosecution and punishment of State crimes was never really set aside.

In recent decades, the right to the truth has increasingly come to the attention of international scholars and jurisprudence. Moving from the recognition of truth as a right in the international arena and exploring the reconstruction and evolution of the right to the truth in the international human rights courts' case-law, the following analysis focuses on the ECtHR and IACtHR insights in a comparative perspective to conclude on the emerging trends of the Strasbourg Court and the Court of San José in interpreting and applying the right to the truth, thereby acting as the "conscience" of the whole of humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios de Derecho is the property of Estudios de Derecho and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in Al-Nashiri v. Poland and Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland highlight the potential tension that may arise between states' broad reliance on national security grounds to withhold disclosure of secret files and compliance with their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The present article examines the above-mentioned judgments, focusing, in particular, on how (and to what extent) the withholding of secret information may infringe on the right to the truth and, as far as proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights are concerned, the state's duty to cooperate with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Verba Iuris is the property of Universidad Libre Bogota, Centre de Investigaciones Socio Juridicas de la Facultad de Derecho and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On 13 December 2012, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered a milestone decision in the quest to ensure accountability of gross human rights violations committed in the fight against terrorism. The case, El-Masri v The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, concerned the extraordinary rendition to torture of an individual wrongly suspected of being involved in terrorism activities. The ECtHR found that by seizing, detaining and secretly transferring Mr El-Masri to the custody of United States (US) intelligence agents, Macedonia had violated the prohibition of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, the prohibition of arbitrary detention, the right to private and family life and the right to access to court as protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, and ordered the respondent government to pay damages in compensation. The decision of the ECtHR broke the wall of secrecy and impunity with which the case of Mr El-Masri had been treated at the domestic level and fully vindicated his human rights’ claims. At the same time, the ECtHR cautiously endorsed a new paradigm of the ‘right to the truth’—that is: a right for the victim and the public at large to know about the abuses committed by governments in the field of national security—increasing the chances of accountability in future cases of gross human rights violations. Nevertheless, the decision also left some issues open, as the ECtHR did not, and could not, address the culpability of US agents who effectively tortured Mr El-Masri in Macedonia, secretly transferred him to Afghanistan and detained him there in inhumane conditions. From this point of view, therefore, the article argues that the decision of the ECtHR should be seen as an opportunity for further action in the US to ensure the full vindication of the values on which our liberty, and our security, ultimately rest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The media repercussion of El-Masri vs. Macedonia (ECHR, 2013) has been extraordinary. In this case the Court recognizes the existence of an illegal detention program secretly launched after the September, 11th attacks by the United States with the connivance of several European States. From a strict legal point of view, it is important to point out that, in this case, the procedural rules have been interpreted in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the European Convention of Human Rights. However, the main aspect underlined in this paper is how, in our opinion, this case seems to have opened a discussion within the Court over the entity of a "right to the truth" under the Convention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the legal guarantees provided in articles 8 and 25 of the American Convention on Human Rights in the light of the judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights .The right to legal assistance of quality, to technical defence provided by the state, not to be forced to incriminate oneself, to appeal the sentence, to not be prosecuted more than once for the same criminal act, protection against harmful acts that affect rights and the right to the truth. These implications are what constitute the conventional guarantees of the Inter-American system that in addition are projected in innumerable specific applications that the Court has determined during the different cases judged by it and which contribute to a specific meaning in the scheme of legal guarantees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]