Commissioning justice Truth commissions and criminal justice 7 INTRODUCTION The value of truth commissions is that they are created, not with the presumption that there will be no trials, but to constitute a step towards knowing the truth and, ultimately, making justice prevail. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Ignacio Ellacuría et al. (El Salvador), Case 10.488, Report no 136/99, 22 December 1999, para229, footnote omitted. In recent years, a debate has flourished on the possibility to “deal with” crimes under international law using non-judicial mechanisms of accountability, such as truth commissions. Based on the distinction between “retributive” justice and “restorative” justice, some have contended that countries have a choice in deciding “what kind of justice” they may pursue: that they may decide not to conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions of crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and rather concentrate on truth-seeking and community reconciliation processes. The establishment of truth commissions (commissions of inquiry tasked with the investigation of patterns of past crimes) has often been considered as an alternative to the investigation and prosecution of crimes under international law before national courts. This paper is based on Amnesty International’s experience and assessment of the work of truth commissions in many countries around the world over the past decades. Part One of this paper offers an overview of the 40 truth commissions established around the world between 1974 and 2010. Part Two analyses their practice with respect to amnesty and prosecutions. The Annex presents a nonexhaustive list of Amnesty International’s publications on truth commissions since 1986. Amnesty International is publishing this paper in order to contribute to the debate about ‘Truth and reconciliation processes as a complement to criminal justice’, which will take place at the Review Conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Kampala, Uganda, 31 May to 11 June 2010). This paper is based on ‘Moving away from the South African model: Amnesties and prosecutions in the practice of 40 truth commissions’, a seminar conducted by Francesca Pizzutelli and organized by Oxford Transitional Justice Research and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, January 2010. Index: POL 30/004/2010 Amnesty International April 2010