Truth-Justice-Reparations Interaction Effects in Transitional Justice Practice

The Case of the 'Valech Commission' in Chile

Bibliographic Data

ID4771759
AuthorsCath Collins (University of Ulster, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume49
Issue1
Pages55-82
Publication date2017-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Latin American Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-216X • E-ISSN: 1469-767X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022216x16001437
OpenAlexW2271174796
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited15

Recent thinking and practice in transitional justice suggest that victims and societies hold indivisible, perhaps even simultaneous, rights to truth, justice and reparations after gross human rights violations. This article analyses the advantages and drawbacks of such holistic approaches to transitional justice, through a case study of Chile's second official truth commission, the 'Valech Commission'. The article illustrates the politics of ongoing contestation about authoritarian era crimes in Latin America, showing how and why the commission was designed to deliver on certain truth-and-reparations obligations towards survivors of past state repression, while attempting to explicitly decouple truth revelations from judicial consequences. It also discusses the implications of associating truth-telling and reparations in a single instance, and in doing so contributes to debates about the potentially contradictory or counterproductive outcomes that may arise from the yoking together of truth, justice and reparations functions in transitional justice policy design

Authoritarianism · Commission · Democracy · Economic Justice · Human rights · Latin Americans · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science) · Transitional justice · Law · Law in Society and Culture

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