What is it about?
This article asks whether economic and social rights (ESR) violations should be included in the thematic mandate of truth commissions (TCs), and if so, how. Specifically, it analyses whether to investigate large-scale ESR violations would conform to the powers and functions that traditionally TCs have had. This paper argues that TCs can investigate large-scale ESR violations without involving themselves in policy determinations. To support this, it first stresses the content of TC's power to investigate these violations. Second, it demonstrates that determining the content of the large majority of State duties arising from ESR is relatively easy as they are of immediate effect. Lastly, it emphasizes the finding of recent research on ESR adjudication that domestic and international courts and bodies have developed a variety of well-articulated legal techniques to adjudicate ESR violations. Based on a discussion of the various types of State duties arising from ESR, relevant experiences from judicial review on ESR and the Kenyan and East Timorese TC’s investigations of large-scale ESR violations, this study also sheds light on how TCs whose mandate include large-scale ESR violations can investigate these abuses. This work also identifies capacity and other practical challenges arising from this type of investigation and proposes measures to address them.
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Why is it important?
It examines not only the question of whether economic and social rights (ESR) violations should be included in the thematic mandate of truth commissions, but also how this should be done. It covers the analytical, legal and normative perspective. It connects various bodies of literature that for long remained separated.
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This page is a summary of: Economic and social rights and truth commissions, The International Journal of Human Rights, May 2019, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2019.1613380.
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Resources
Book: The Rights of Victims in Criminal Justice Proceedings for Serious Human Rights Violations
The Rights of Victims in Criminal Justice Proceedings for Serious Human Rights Violations addresses a question of critical importance to policy-makers, international lawyers, academics, and affected societies throughout the world: Should victims of serious human rights violations be granted under international law the rights of access to and participation in criminal proceedings before international, hybrid and domestic tribunals? Juan Carlos Ochoa applies a thorough analysis of international and comparative domestic law and practice to this question, taking into account a host of international human rights instruments and case law, the theory, law and practice of international and hybrid criminal tribunals, the law and practice in several domestic jurisdictions, and many theoretical and empirical studies. After first determining the current state of, and emerging trends in, international law in this area, he argues that the lack of recognition of these rights under customary international law is inadequate, because access to and participation in criminal proceedings for victims of these infringements are based on several internationally recognised human rights and principles, contribute to the expressivist objectives of these procedures, and are consistent with the principles that inform the enforcement of criminal law in democratic States. On this basis, Ochoa convincingly suggests concrete reforms.
Economic and Social Rights and Transitional Justice
Should some socio-economic issues be included in the realm of transitional justice? And if so, how? This work brings analytical clarity and original insights to these questions and specifically to the inclusion of violations of economic and social rights (ESRs) within the mandate of several widely used transitional justice mechanisms. First, it provides a nuanced and comprehensive framework of analysis to examine whether the inclusion of large-scale ESR violations within the powers of the studied mechanisms is in conformity with the functions they have had traditionally. Second, by analyzing the implementation of this analytical framework with respect to the power to adjudicate and provide reparations for large-scale ESR violations, it sheds new light on important aspects of these questions.
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