ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the content of the right in terms of its grounding, its legal status, its general content, its continuing nature, and the need for authoritative statements of truth. The suffering of individuals, the chapter provides the grounding for a right based on conventional theories of human rights; in particular, suffering creates an interest of sufficient weight to justify imposing a duty on others, particularly the state. A significant question is whether this right to the truth should be conceived as having a value, which is independent of the achievement of other rights and duties that are associated with the proper response of a legitimate state to widespread atrocity. The separation argument provides a standard against which a range of practices relating to transitional justice and the position of victims and exemplified in truth and reconciliation commissions, international criminal law trials and international human rights courts can be examined and analysed.
