ABSTRACT
Truth commissions are obliged to fulfill their specific mandate, or the terms of reference upon which they are founded. The mandates of some have been explicit about what abuses they were to document and investigate, but many provide only general guidance about the acts or violations to be investigated. These terms of reference, usually created by presidential decree, national legislation, or as part of a peace accord ending a civil war, can define a commission’s powers, limit or strengthen its investigative reach, and set the timeline, subject matter, and geographic scope of a commission’s investigation, and thus define the truth that will be documented.
