Genealogy, Variations and Specificity of the Right to Truth

Abstract

This essay focuses on the right to truth as a specific guarantee of the human person, characterised by both an individual and collective dimension, especially in the context of transitional justice. The analysis takes as its perimeter of investigation both the normative datum, which highlights its development in three phases (at first exclusively in the sphere of international humanitarian law, then circumscribed to the context of enforced disappearances, and today applicable in any case of serious violation), and the practice of the decisions of international tribunals and human rights control mechanisms. The aim is to highlight how the right to truth, far from constituting an aspiration that is more ethical than juridical or a mere explication of pre-existing rights already established, can, if crystallised, serve the pursuit of its own objectives that would be difficult to achieve without it. Keywords: Human rights; Rights to the truth; Transitional justice; Gross violations