ABSTRACT
Truth commissions or official bodies of various kinds established to shed light on human rights abuses or violations of international law during a previous defined period of time have come to be regarded as part of the process of societal transitions out of political violence. A growing scholarship on the varieties, role, function and effectiveness of truth processes from 1974 onward (e.g. Hayner, 1994, 2001; Hamber, 1998; Barahona De Brito et al., 2001; Biggar, 2001; Cairns and Roe, 2003) has pointed to the varieties of form, various functions and limitations of such initiatives. The wide variety of such bodies, and their diverse remits and levels of impact is knowledge available to those who consider the dilemmas associated with the challenge of managing the past.
