Advancing Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship since 1978
Legacy Conference
Implementing Truth and Reconciliation: Comparative Lessons for Korea, 2011
Published November 11, 2021
The UB School of Law hosted the international conference, Implementing Truth and Reconciliation: Comparative Lessons for Korea, on October 24, 2011. The conference brought together experts from around the globe to reflect on national experiences of the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. Co-sponsored by The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, the Asian Studies Program, and the Buffalo Human Rights Center, the conference offered lessons on the TRC process in South Korea. Now, a decade later, the 2011 event is considered a legacy conference.
Photographic Retrospective
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Event Notes
The conference included two panels:
- "The Korean TRC Experience: Critical Reflections Toward the Future"
- "Implementing Truth and Reconciliation: Lessons from Peru, Cambodia and South Africa"
The TRC Korea officially closed its doors at the end of 2010 after more than four years of work, during which time it investigated approximately 10,000 reported cases of human rights violations taking place between 1910 and 1993. Much work lies ahead, however, in publicizing and implementing the commission's findings and recommendations.
There is much to learn from the comparative experiences of the more than 30 other TRCs that have undertaken work in countries around the world. Such commissions have taken a diversity of forms, responded to distinct kinds of violence over distinct periods of time, and -- given the diversity of approaches taken -- had a wide variety of success rates with the implementation of their final recommendations.
Participants included experts in transitional justice and TRC processes in Peru, South Africa and Cambodia who seek to document the reasons behind these relative success rates. They explained the distinct approaches taken to implementation, the web of actors involved in the implementation process, and the lessons learned about what worked, what did not work and how, looking back, the implementation process might have been restructured to achieve better results.