ARGENTINA, 1984

National Commission on the Disappeared Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP)

TC report: Informe de la Comisión Nacional Sobre la Desaparición de Personas

Spanish version available at:

http://www.desaparecidos.org/arg/conadep/nuncamas/

English version available at:

http://web.archive.org/web/20031004074316/nuncamas.org/english/library/

nevagain/nevagain_001.htm

English version available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Nunca-Mas-Never-Again-Report/dp/0571138497/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489094735&sr=8-1&keyw

ords=nunca+mas+argentina (official English translation, for sale)

URUGUAY, 1985

Investigative Commission on the Situation of Disappeared People and its Causes

Comisión Investigadora Parlamentaria Sobre la Situación de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la Motivaron

TC report: Informe final de la Comisión Investigadora Parlamentaria Sobre Situación de Personas Desaparecidas y Hechos que la Motivaron

Spanish version available at (see only pp. 1 – 25):

http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/tomo4.pdf

Note that the original report is not publicly available. However, there is a modern reproduction made by the Uruguayan government, online available, edited in 4 volumes by Presidency in 2007. This 2007 publication by the Uruguayan government of the TC reports was reproduced as part of implementing a recommendation from the ComiPaz. The five-volume publication is titled Investigación Histórica sobre Detenidos Desaparecidos, and the TC reports are re-produced in Vol. IV. See:

http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/2007060509.htm

The entire 2007 volume is available in Spanish here:

Volume 1:

http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/tomo1.pdf

Volume 2: http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/tomo2.pdf

Volume 3: http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/tomo3.pdf

Volume 4: http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/tomo4.pdf

Volume 5: http://archivo.presidencia.gub.uy/_web/noticias/2007/06/tomo5.pdf

The re-production is also available through this site:

http://www.desaparecidos.org/uru/

English version not available.

CHILE RETTIG, 1991

National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation “The Rettig Commission”

Comisión Rettig

TC report: Informe de la Comisión Nacional de Verdad y Reconciliación (“Informe Rettig”). Vol. 1 – 3.

Spanish version available at:

http://www.ddhh.gov.cl/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/tomo1.pdf (Volume 1),

http://www.ddhh.gov.cl/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/tomo2.pdf (Volume 2), and

http://www.ddhh.gov.cl/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/tomo3.pdf (Volume 3)

English version (Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation) available at:

http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/resources/collections/truth_commissions/Chile90-Report/Chile90-Report.pdf

EL SALVADOR, 1993

Commission on the Truth for El Salvador

Comisión de la Verdad para El Salvador (CVES)

TC report: De la locura a la esperanza. La guerra de 12 años en El Salvador.

Spanish version available at:

http://www.derechoshumanos.net/lesahumanidad/informes/elsalvador/informede-la-locura-a-la-esperanza.htm and

https://www.scribd.com/document/137504386/De-la-locura-a-la-esperanza-La-guerra-de-12-anos-en-El-Salvador

English version available at:

http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/file/ElSalvador-Report.pdf

HAITI, 1996

National Truth and Justice Commission Commission Nationale de Véritéet de Justice (CNVJ)

TC report: Si m pa rele: 29 September 1991 – 14 Octobre 1994.

Truth commissions have become an indispensable part of the transitional justice and peace-building tool-kit in recent years. The anticipated impact of such commissions usually relates to three things: the actual work of the truth commission (in particular, its interaction with victims, perpetrators, and society at large); the issuance of a report; and the implementation of the recommendations made in that report. This latter dimension has attracted comparatively little attention from scholars and practitioners. In fact, we know very little about whether, how, why, and which recommendations are actually implemented and, when they are, with what effect. Yet, truth commission recommendations may be highly significant in shaping how societies heal and develop after periods of repression and/or violent conflict. As such, the fate of recommendations overlaps with good governance and development concerns, among other things.

This volume takes stock of the implementation records of the recommendations made by 13 truth commissions across 11 Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay) in the period from 1983 through 2017. It is the first book ever to provide a systematic comparative analysis of the entire universe of recommendations made by all formal (i.e., state-sponsored) truth commissions in a geographical region. It also is the first book to include a large selection of little known, under-researched cases like the truh commissions of Ecuador, Haiti, Panama, and Paraguay. These commissions addressed a variety of human rights violations committed in the context of repression by authoritarian regimes and civil war. Some were created in the immediate after math of democratic transition and/or conflict termination; others came years later. This volume, therefore, offers several important innovations for scholars and practitioners concerned with democratization, peace-building, and transitional justice in general and with truth commissions in particular.

The events covered in this volume start with what is arguably the first truth commission in the world, Argentina's Comisión Nacional sobre la Desaparición de Personas (CONADEP). Established right after the country's transition to democratic rule in 1983, CONADEP handed over its famous report, Nunca Más, to the Alfonsín government the following year. Chronologically, the book ends with the politics surrounding the implementation of the Brazilian Comissão Nacional da Verdad 's recommendations after it handed over its final report to then-President, Dilma Rouseff, in December 2014.

During the past four decades, over 50 countries have established truth commissions to investigate patterns of gross human rights violations committed by repressive regimes and/or in the context of internal armed conflict. Depending upon what types of commissions one counts, more than a third of these commissions have been in Latin America, making it a leading region in this search for truth. Constructing shared memories of the past, many believe, is crucial to healing divided societies after violent conflict and repression. Apart from documenting abuses, most truth commissions make recommendations to governments. The assumption is that these recommendations, if implemented well, will prompt further measures to address past abuses – such as compensating surviving victims and their families for past suffering – and promote the types of reforms that may aid societies in the transition from violence to peace, democracy, and reconciliation.

A significant scholarly literature on truth commissions not with standing (Bakiner 2016; Chapman 2009; Ferrara 2014; Freeman 2006; Freeman and Hayner 2003; Hayner 1994, 2001; Mayer-Rieckh and Varney 2019; Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2010b), to date there is no systematic study of the formulation and implementation of truth commission recommendations. Hence, we know little about whether and under what conditions recommendations are implemented. This knowledge gap has been increasingly recognized (United Nations General Assembly, 2013). As the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence, Pablo de Greiff, warned shortly after taking office in 2012, truThcommissions around the world “ face various challenges which can lead to the non-implementation of recommendations. Among these challenges are overly broad mandates, flawed choices of commissioners, and insufficient and unreliable funding streams “ (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 2013).

The research project of which this volume forms part analyzes the recommendations of 13 Latin American truth commissions established by 11 countries since 1982 to gather more knowledge about their implementation. The overarching question we had when we embarked on this project was: How frequently are truth commission recommendations implemented? This led to two further questions related to variation in recommendations. first, we are interested in what factors influence the presence of recommendations and the form they take? Second, we explore to what extent do the type and complexity of recommendations influence the degree of implementation?

As the chapters in this volume aptly illustrate, there is enormous variety in the number of recommendations and level of detail presented in the 13 truThcommission reports.

Implementation Rates for Recommendations Made by 13 Latin American truth Commissions, by Category

The ambitions of those who establish truth commissions, and those who serve on them, are reflected in the names of these commissions. They often flag the term “truth ” in various combinations with justice, reconciliation, clarification, never again (Nunca Más) – even friendship. How can truth commissions possibly contribute to all these ambitious aims? It is an underlying, but seldom explicit assumption, that many of these aspirations can only be fulfilled if the recommendations made by truth commissions also are implemented. The transformative potential of truth commissions arguably lies most directly in the body of recommendations put forward in their report. Commission recommendations usually include reforms in the legal, political and social fields, and reparations of various kinds. The list is often extensive. Yet, this in itself raises questions about expectations and the possibility of implementation. That is what this book is about: the implementation of truth commission recommendations.

Over the past four decades, although estimates vary, over fifty countries have established truth commissions to investigate patterns of gross human rights violations committed by repressive regimes and/or in the context of armed conflict. More than a third of these commissions have been in Latin America, making it a leading region in this search for truth. Constructing shared memories of the past, many believe, is crucial for healing divided societies after violent conflict and repression. Apart from documenting abuses, most truth commissions make recommendations to governments. The assumption is that these recommendations, if implemented well, will help individuals and societies heal, and aid societies in the transition from violence to peace, democracy, and reconciliation. We hope this book helps generate more realistic expectations, particularly on the part of victims and affected communities.

This book is the first of two volumes which jointly provide the first systematic study of the formulation and implementation of the recommendations of thirteen Latin American truth commissions in eleven countries (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay), covering a period of 35 years (1983-2017). Coming out of a research project based at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Bergen, Norway, and funded by the Research Council of Norway (2015-2017), the two Beyond Words volumes are the first ever to provide a systematic comparative analysis of the entire universe of recommendations made by all formal (i.e., state sponsored) truth commissions in a geographical region.

Latin American Countries Signatories to and Ratification of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (2006)

What has happened to the roughly 1000 recommendations that Latin American truth commissions have made over the past four decades? Did they remain just words on paper, or have they been implemented? This is a highly relevant empirical question if one is concerned with the impact and relevance of truth commissions. This chapter zooms in on each of the 13 formal truth commissions established in Latin America between the mid-1980s and the mid-2010s to provide a flavour of the implementation record of their recommendations. Whereas most qualitative comparative work on truth commissions focuses on their establishment, mandates, and operations (Bakiner 2016; Hayner 1994; Hayner 2011; Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2010), we present 13 mini case studies of truth commissions, focusing specifically on their recommendations and the degree of implementation .

The final reports of these commissions have, as suggested earlier in this book, made a wide range of recommendations covering numerous substantive issues. In Chapter 3, we introduced seven substantive categories plus an “other” category to group and systematize the recommendations: Institutional reform, legal reform, constitutional reform, criminal prosecution, reparations, nonrepetition measures, follow-up measures, and “other” measures. When coding the recommendations according to these categories, we ended up with 1512 coded recommendations, based on the fact that recommendations are sometimes crafted in complex ways such that one recommendation asks the state to do multiple things. Each of these coded recommendations is what we refer to as an action item. They are the units of analysis in this chapter.

The following analysis is based on three main types of source material: (1) data on implementation for each of the 13 truth commissions, specifically collected for the Beyond Words project, of which this volume forms a part; (2) the country chapters written for each of the truth commission cases, using the data collected for this project, which appear in a companion volume (Skaar, Wiebelhaus-Brahm, and García-Godos (eds.) 2022); and (3) secondary sources. Note that the secondary literature is very uneven. There is quite a large scholarly literature on some of the truth commissions, namely Chile's Rettig Commission, Argentina's CONADEP, Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification and Peru's CNV, though surprisingly few scholars have concerned themselves specifically with their recommendations.

In 2011, truth commission expert Priscilla Hayner noted “the weak record of implementation of the often very strong recommendations of truth commissions” (Hayner 2011, 6). Her conclusion is impressionistic, based upon a selection of 25 – strong as well as weak – truth commissions that had been established around the world over the previous four decades. In this chapter, however, we find that Hayner's conclusions are oversimplified, at least with respect to Latin America. A decade after Hayner published her book, we show that truth commission recommendations are, in fact, often implemented. By taking a systematic, fine-grained approach to studying implementation, we find much greater success, at least in Latin America, than has been commonly acknowledged in the transitional justice field.

Implementation of truth commission recommendations matters for several reasons. If we truly care about what impact truth commissions have on the (re)construction of peace and democracy after periods of authoritarianism and/or armed conflict, we cannot avoid taking into consideration the recommendations that such commissions make in their final reports. As we will argue in this chapter, it is hard to gauge a truth commission's potential short-term or long-term impact without taking its recommendations into consideration. Moreover, as our analysis shows, the recommendations made by truth commissions may potentially have importance for democratization and post-conflict reconstruction way beyond the mandates of the truth commissions themselves.

This chapter analyses the implementation record of nearly 1000 recommendations made by 13 Latin American truth commissions. We draw on an extensive database and 11 rich country studies (Skaar, Wiebelhaus-Brahm, and García-Godos (eds.) 2022), supplemented with secondary sources. As Chapter 3 demonstrated, in their final reports, most Latin American truth commissions have made recommendations in a wide range of areas, spanning institutional and legal reform, reparations, non-repetition measures and many more – in addition to measures to promote truth and justice. In addition to providing an empirical analysis of the kinds of recommendations that have been implemented in the Latin American context, we go beyond the purely descriptive to offer explanations for why we find different degrees of implementation across the different truth commissions and across different types of recommendations.

Each truth commission has a separate Excel file. Each file contains three sheets, comprising in total four main parts (A–D):

• 1. A) General information about the truth commission recommendations (TCRs), and B) Categorizing truth commission recommendations (TCR) by type.

• 2. C) Formulation of TCRs.

• 3. D) Events surrounding TCR implementation (or lack thereof).

Parts A and B deal with the characteristics of individual truth commission recommendations (sheet one).

Part C deals with the circumstances in which the TRCs were created (sheet two).

Part D deals with the implementation of the TCRs (sheet three).

Each TCR is given an identification number so that we can easily trace the formulation and implementation of a particular TCR.

Sheet One: truth Commission Recommendations (TCRs) [Country Name]

The goal of this sheet is to (A) record all of the recommendations listed in the TC’s report, and (B) to categorize TCRs into various types that we hypothesize may influence the likelihood of the TCR being implemented. In the Type area of the sheet, for each TCR, please check the boxes (by typing an “X”) that best describe the TCR. NOTE: Each TCR may fall within more than one type. Descriptions of each type can be found below.

OVERVIEW OF truth COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS

Column A: truth commission short name: Already provided. Repeat if you add new lines.

Column B: Rec ID: Each recommendation in the dataset will have its own unique identification number. The first recommendation for TC 1 (Argentina) will have a Rec ID = ARG 1.1, the third recommendation listed in Brazil's report will have a Rec ID = BRA 2.3, etc. Recommendations may be long and complex; multiple recommendations may be listed under what the commission has labelled one recommendation. If the recommendation actually contains several recommendations, record the entire text of the recommendation in the row. We will deal with the complexity of implementing different parts of a complex recommendation in sheet three (more details below).

Column C: Volume and chapter: Record where in the TC report the recommendation is listed.

Column D: Pages: Provide the exact page(s) where the TCR appears in the TC report.

If you add more lines for additional recommendations, number them consecutively. Again, each recommendation should be listed in this sheet in the same order in which they are presented in the TC report.

Column E: Recommendation (original language): List the recommendation word-for-word as it appears in the original text of the TC report.

Column F: Recommendation (English): Provide an English translation of the recommendation.