At Pambazuka News Yav Katshung Joseph, a Human Rights lawyer and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo has an in-depth article on Truth Commissions and their historical, political, judicial, and cultural purpose. I have written quite a lot on truth commissions, and I believe that Joseph hits on an important question, especially when truth commissions emerge as a possible solution to still-festering problems without a mechanism to make them effective in terms of providing both the carrots and the sticks to urge, promote, and compel near-full participation from parties on all sides of the political divides that make such bodies viable, without which no truth commission can be successful.
