How Conditional Amnesties Can Assist Transitional Societies in Delivering on the Right to the Truth

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4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article explores how conditional amnesties can assist post-conflict societies to recover truth. It examines how such amnesties can be used optimally to achieve the best results as part of transitional justice mechanisms. Thus, a central question is to see how amnesties can be used for truth recovery purposes. For that reason, the status and role of amnesties, and whether such amnesties can be used to learn more about the past and assist in truth recovery is explored. The article explores what amnesties are, how prevalent they are and how amnesties can be used optimally to achieve the best results. An issue that is also explored is whether amnesties are needed for perpetrators to participate in transitional justice mechanisms. The argument that is made, in this regard, is that amnesty is absolutely necessary to persuade perpetrators to testify. If they do not have such legal protection, perpetrators fear the legal consequences that may result if they admit to crimes for which they have not been charged. Another question that is examined concerns whether amnesties, and specifically conditional amnesties, pass international law muster. This article therefore investigates the continual and extensive use of amnesty to determine whether a conditional amnesty violates international law. The article suggests how a conditional amnesty process could be structured and what difficulties such a process should avoid if perpetrators are to enter such a process.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)143-175
Number of pages33
JournalInternational Human Rights Law Review
Volume6
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2017

Keywords

  • amnesty
  • conditional amnesty
  • international law
  • perpetrators
  • the Right to the Truth
  • transitional justice

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