The right to the truth in the politics of post-conflict settlement: international documents and world experience

The process of effective peacemaking in post-conflict societies requires balanced approaches to the realization of the right to truth, conscious participation of the state and society in the search for strategies for a common future. The process of reproduction of the common history plays a key role in overcoming the post-traumatic syndrome of the victims of the conflict and preventing recurrences of confrontation based on the consistent implementation of individual and collective rights to the truth. The presented study highlights the world experience of realization of the right to truth. The authors have made an attempt to highlight a set of universal means of reconciliation in international documents, which confirmed their effectiveness in various options of post-conflict settlement. One of the most effective ways to establish the truth about violations, that took place during the conflict, is the activities of special truth and reconciliation commissions. An analysis of the activities of such commissions in different countries of the world became the basis for the fundamental UN documents that contain clear recommendations on the principles of organization of the work of relevant institutions for the restoration of the right to the truth and achieving social consensus in the post-conflict period. In regulatory the UN documents, the right to the truth by its nature can be characterized as a collective as well as an individual right. The individual right to the truth provides an opportunity to protect the rights, freedoms and interests of an individual when an offence affects him directly or indirectly through family members. The individual measurement of the right to truth is realized through the possibilities of the judicial system to restore the violated human right to life, health, privacy, property or personal human rights. The collective dimension of the right to the truth is most often associated with the possibilities of protecting the public perception of the tragic events of mass human rights violations, ...