ABSTRACT
Advocates of truth commission consider the right to the truth as a key reason to establish truth commissions. This chapter examines truth commissions and their potential to satisfy individual and public aspects of the right to the truth. It concerns victim involvement and their testimony in the truth-finding process as well as the challenges associated with investigating but not prosecuting. The chapter focuses on the potential stepping stone truth commissions represent in working towards prosecutions and reparations to fully appraise their significance for the right to the truth. The public aspect of the right to the truth should therefore not be compromised by truth commissions designed in their focus to consolidate the power of incumbent governments. The impetus of some truth commissions may be public truth oriented rather than focused on the individual and lacking in specificity when it comes to individual victims and their fate.
