Nuevo Derecho (Dec 2022)
The Right to Truth in Colombia's Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Repetition. A Direct Approach to the Intrinsic Relationship between its Mechanisms and Objectives
Abstract
The peace deal between the Colombian Government and the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia established the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Non-Repetition, comprised of the Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition Commission, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, and the Unit for the Search of Persons Presumed Disappeared in the context and because of the armed conflict. This set of mechanisms guarantee the rights to truth, justice, reparation, and measures of non-recurrence as stipulated in the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Armed Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Lasting Peace. One of its most critical and imperative aspects is the right to truth for the victims of serious human rights violations and their relatives. This right, conceived primarily as a human right, coexists with the other three pillars of transitional justice, interacting and complementing them. This paper aims to define the content of the right to truth in the three bodies that make up the Comprehensive System, to conclude that, although each mechanism pursues a different kind of truth, there is a bond of complementarity between them, addressing the rights of its victims and their needs, structuring a collective memory on the war in Colombia.
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