Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions. Edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. 309p. $55.00 cloth, $18.05 paper.

Abstract

Scholarship is substantial and growing on "transitional jus- tice," that is, the legal and political decisions devised by incoming democratizing regimes to address the excesses of outgoing repressive regimes and the harms endured by their victims. Truth commissions are perhaps the most significant, if controversial, innovations in a democratizing regime's toolbox. Their significance is largely derived from their peculiarity. Since the early 1970s, approximately 21 commis- sions have been established in various countries. They have been defined as "bodies set up to investigate a past history of violations of human rights in a particular country-which can include violations by the military or other government forces or by armed opposition forces" (Priscilla Hayner, "Fifteen Truth Commissions-1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study," Human Rights Quarterly 16 [November 1994]: 597-655).