AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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Report on Science and Human Rights

Winter 2003 Vol XXIII, No. 1

In recent years, truth and reconciliation commissions have become popular tools for newly elected democratic governments to address past periods of human rights violations, consolidate democracy, and heal the wounds of the past. In the last twenty years, more than twenty truth commissions have been established in such diverse countries as Argentina, Chile, Nigeria, South Africa and East Timor, and commissions are currently operating in Peru, Ghana, and Sierra Leone.

Conference participants Jeffrey Sonis, Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Tony Reeler, Amani Trust, Zimbabwe; and Lazarus Kgalema, CSVR, South Africa discuss victim studies.

Truth commissions have also become a popular subject for researchers and international policy analysts in the developing field of transitional justice. Much of the early literature has taken a descriptive approach. However, new research has begun to use empirical social science methods to examine the impact of truth commissions on their societies.

In November 2002, the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program and the South African-based Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation co-organized a conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa, which brought together transitional justice researchers to discuss design and methodological issues in empirical studies of truth commissions. Sixty social scientists from a variety of disciplines, including political science, statistics, criminology and sociology, attended the conference.

In his welcoming remarks, CSVR Director Graeme Simpson outlined the goals of the conference and set the tone for the three days of reflection and discussion, saying that “this conference is vital because of the demand it represents that our research must be rigorous and empirically defensible, not merely for its own sake, but because of the forward-looking policy implications and interventions that this facilitates both within and between countries.”

The conference featured three days of thematically oriented sessions. During the first day, keynote speakers Neil Kritz, Director of the Rule of Law Program at the United States Institute of Peace, and Brandon Hamber of Democratic Dialogue in Northern Ireland addressed the relevance of research in making policy determinations and the transferability of lessons learned, respectively. The afternoon session was devoted to clarifying the key concepts of “truth,” “justice,” and “reconciliation.” The following two days were dedicated to panel discussions on specific methodologies currently in use to assess transitional justice mechanisms. Panelists from a variety of countries and academic backgrounds discussed the relevance, usefulness, challenges, and limitations of public opinion surveys, institutional impact assessments, perpetrator and victim studies, community studies, and comparative analyses.

The conference gave participants an opportunity to examine the different methodologies from a wide range of perspectives. While it is clear that no one method is appropriate in all circumstances, each of the methodologies has advantages and disadvantages when used to study particular social phenomena. The conference highlighted the need for further discussion on how researchers can best use social science methods in their work.

Several of the participants were concerned with how to make their research more relevant and influential, not only in the area of policy-making, but also for sharing their findings with the victims and survivors who participated in their studies. There is a critical need to bring this information back to the community so that people have an opportunity to make sense of their individual experiences in a larger context, and use the research results in their efforts to lobby for further truth and justice in their respective societies.

The conference also highlighted the need to reinforce the many international partnerships and networks that were formed and engage in cooperative research and comparative studies. New, more holistic investigations are needed into underexplored areas such as the role of judiciaries, multinationals, and other governments in human rights abuses; the attitudes and needs of people who choose not to participate in transitional justice mechanisms; the experiences and needs of children, youth, and women; and the ways in which political violence becomes part of criminal networks.

The full agenda of this conference is available online at http://shr.aaas.org/mtjm. Selected papers will be published in an edited volume.