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Summary: The Margins of Truth
Review: Priscilla Hayner is, very likely, the world's most expert writer on 'truth commissions'. This book is a follow-up on the article '15 Truth Commissions', published in the Human Rights Quarterly, which was the first systematic review of the issue up to the mid-1990s. This book deals with dozens of examples up to 1999. Hayner describes how truth commissions are being established.How they operate under very different mandates, e.g. on presidential order, by parliamentary decision, under U.N. auspices, or as a judicial commission of enquiry. How some commissions deal with a large pattern of abuses, such as in Soutth Africa, and others have been concerned with selected violations only, such as the 'disappearances' which were the subject matter of the Argentine commission. How these commissions report, or do not report, on their findings. How commissions are concerned with, or show less than the necessary concern for, the victims. Much of Hayners observations are based on interviews with those directly involved in these commissions. The book has a couple of very useful appendices, where one can compare the mandate, membership, dates, operations, findings, and other characteristics. A few points of criticism are due too. Hayner's book may be the first of its scope, but it is not really, contrary to what is said in the Introduction, the first on the subject. A more serious point is that Hayner deals with these commissions rather as a standard concept. In fact, the commissions have shown wide divergencies and quite a few, if not the majority, may after all be considered less than an outright success. Hayner's optimism about future commissions may be somewhat misleading. It seems at present not at all sure that there is a sound future for truth commissions, the more so as the issue of national and international trials for those responsible has gained prominence in recent years.
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