ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the importance of the right to the truth to individuals and how it might be extended to societies. The moral universalism for pursuing and ascertaining the truth may thus run into counterclaims based on the right-bearers’ political, religious and cultural grounds for not pursuing the truth. Whilst religious and cultural sensitivities may be very genuine reasons for limits to truth-seeking mechanism, they can also be used as smokescreens to detract from political motives not to investigate. Thus, in a sense, within the universalism of the need, a right with sufficient flexibility ought to follow, so that a truth may emerge, not at all costs, but sensible enough to reflect what is appropriate in the given circumstances. Furthermore, the right to the truth and the need for state investigations has been expressly included in the formulation of abuses, notably enforced disappearance, torture and extrajudicial killings.
