compelling recommendations, truth commissions could have assisted to enrich policy and create political and moral momentum for these initiatives. That said, truth commissions are not necessarily indispensable. To be illustrative a number of countries of relatively peaceful transitions to democracy in which the past has not been systematically examined have been provided in the database. In places like Cote d„Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mozambique, Mali, Malawi and Senegal, where there appears to be a consensus that the past should be left alone, that sentiment should be respected. Moreover, in spite of the growing prevalence of the truth commission phenomenon, there is still no understanding of its effectiveness, whether in pre or post-transitional settings. It is not clear whether truth commissions have effects or that there are other factors causing an impact. Evidence is often anecdotal. Many of the existing comparative studies focus on a few prominent cases, such as South Africa. Most of the lessons learned from truth commission experiences have thus been drawn from only a small number of cases. Having said that, truth commissions are intuitively appealing, and they have many supporters in global civil society. The emerging trend in international human rights law is increasingly recognized as containing an obligation to deal with past gross human rights abuses. As a result, the pressure to examine a legacy of human rights abuses is likely to remain strong. While the UTCs are a major accomplishment, it does not necessary translate to change. The best way to allow the momentum of the UTCs into real transitional justice mechanisms, such as an official truth commission, is to raise the standards of data collection and to continue to research and compile evidence that can be used in future years when the country or its leaders are more open to accountability mechanisms. Judicial Proceedings Judicial proceedings can be initiated either by individuals, governments themselves or by human rights groups acting on behalf of victims. Court trials consist of foreign criminal prosecutions, civil trials and domestic criminal prosecutions. “As a transitional method, the use of court trials for redress involves the legal adjudication of acts committed during the past conflicts or atrocities. Court trials seek to bring the perpetrators to account and provide redress to the victims by officially recognizing their harms, establishing the truth and, in some cases, providing reparations to them. This transitional justice method functions through the charging of an accused, the prosecution and defence team bringing evidence as to the role and actions of the accused in relation to the crimes charged against him or her, and a judge or panel of judges rendering judgment as to his or her guilt or innocence.‖ (Stan and Nedelsky. 2013:106) As was seen in the quantitative analysis, each of these remedies was used in differing amounts in both the pre and post-transitional periods. However, the frequency of all three increased significantly, unsurprisingly, in the post-transitional period. It was also observed that the frequencies of each varied considerably from each other, with domestic criminal prosecutions being far and away the most commonly applied remedy, and foreign criminal prosecutions being more common than civil trials. The infrequency of these last, civil trials is of particular interest in the Zimbabwean situation. 27