International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2018, 0, 1–22 doi: 10.1093/ijtj/ijy002 Article Assessing a Late Truth Commission: Challenges and Achievements of the Brazilian National Truth Commission Marcelo Torelly*
ABSTRACT1 Mobilizing the literature, official documents, press materials and field notes, this article discusses the Brazilian National Truth Commission (NTC) timing, process and results. It argues that Brazil’s transitional justice evolved differently from that of its neighbour- ing countries and that establishing the truth was just one of the NTC’s goals. Created when much of the truth was known, the Brazilian NTC had to address two competing expectations: first, the promotion of an account of the past that supported the previ- ously established conciliatory narrative (the status quo expectation); and second, to challenge that path by mobilizing society against impunity (the victims’ expectation). This tension influenced the NTC’s agenda and its results. Despite the modest out- comes in truth seeking, the NTC achieved three main goals: improving historical accountability; promoting international human rights norms; and challenging the veto power that the military still holds. This constitutes a step forward. KEYWORDS: Brazil, truth commission, military rule, human rights violations, civil– military relations
INTRODUCTION The recent literature regarding truth commissions has focused on qualitatively and quantitatively assessing their impacts, which go far beyond ‘truth seeking.’ While a first wave of studies in the field questioned whether truth or justice should be chosen in postauthoritarian transitions, current studies try to understand how transitional justice mechanisms interact and improve human rights and when they should be used.1 Whereas large-scale, quantitative research has emphasized the overall impact
* Postdoctoral Fellow, Faculty of Law, University of Brası´lia, Brazil. Email: [email protected] 1 The author would like to thank Cath Collins, James N. Green and Nina Schneider for their comments on and critiques of drafts of this article. The views and conclusions reflected in this article are solely those of the author and are in no way intended to reflect the views of the institutions with which the author is affiliated. 1 See, Robert Rotberg and Dennis Thompson, eds., Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); Tricia Olsen, Leigh Payne and Andrew Reiter, ‘When Truth Commissions Improve Human Rights,’ International Journal of Transitional Justice 4(3) (2010): 457–476; Geoff Dancy, Hunjoon Kim and Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, ‘The Turn to Truth: Trends in Truth Commission Experimentation,’ Journal of Human Rights 9(1) (2010): 45–64.
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