Right to truth

Women of the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared demonstrate in front of La Moneda Palace during the Pinochet military regime, demanding information on loved ones subjected to forced disappearance.

Right to truth is the right, in the case of grave violations of human rights, for the victims and their families or societies to have access to the truth of what happened.[1][2] The right to truth is closely related to, but distinct from, the state obligation to investigate and prosecute serious state violations of human rights.[3][4] Right to truth is a form of victims' rights;[5] it is especially relevant to transitional justice in dealing with past abuses of human rights.[6] In 2006, Yasmin Naqvi concluded that the right to truth "stands somewhere on the threshold of a legal norm and a narrative device ... somewhere above a good argument and somewhere below a clear legal rule".[7][8]

  1. ^ Vedaschi, Arianna (2014). "Globalization of Human Rights and Mutual Influence between Courts: The Innovative Reverse Path of the Right to the Truth". In Shetreet, Shimon (ed.). The Culture of Judicial Independence: Rule of Law and World Peace. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. pp. 107–133. ISBN 978-90-04-25781-8.
  2. ^ Park, Y. Gloria (2010). "Truth as Justice: Legal and Extralegal Development of the Right to Truth". Harvard International Review. 31 (4): 24–27. ISSN 0739-1854. JSTOR 42763345.
  3. ^ Sweeney, James A (2018). "The Elusive Right to Truth in Transitional Human Rights Jurisprudence". International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 67 (2): 353–387. doi:10.1017/S0020589317000586.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Panepinto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Klinkner, Melanie; Davis, Howard (2019). The Right to The Truth in International Law: Victims' Rights in Human Rights and International Criminal Law. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-33508-5.
  6. ^ Szoke-Burke, Sam (2015). "Searching for the Right to Truth: The Impact of International Human Rights Law on National Transitional Justice Policies". Berkeley Journal of International Law. 33: 526.
  7. ^ Sweeney 2018, p. 359.
  8. ^ Naqvi, Yasmin (2006). "The right to the truth in international law: fact or fiction?". International Review of the Red Cross. 88 (862): 245–273. doi:10.1017/S1816383106000518. S2CID 144817072.