ABSTRACT
Both of these aims — advancing reconciliation and promoting institutional reforms — have presented significant challenges to past truth commissions, and while some important contributions have been made, they have often fallen short of obtaining the results initially hoped for. This has been the cause of much disappointment for those who have held high hopes for the transformational powers of individual truth commissions, but in retrospect this should hardly come as a surprise. Both of these goals are dependent on any number of outside actors or elements — political will, legislative or presidential initiatives, and societal and individual readiness to change, among others — such that even heroic efforts by any one truthspeaking commission cannot alone make all of the necessary changes.
