真相与和解委员会机制对促进和保障人权的作用——以南非真相与和解委员会为重点

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa and Its Contribution to the World's Human Rights Cause

真相委员会是过渡司法中最具特色的机制。在目前存在过的所有真相委员会中,最受世人关注的当属南非的真相与和解委员会。它进一步发挥了真相委员会的功能,不仅澄清真相,更试图通过真相的讲述来促进种族间的和解。其对世界人权事业的作用主要包括:成功避免国家陷入内战,捍卫人民最基本人权;成为重建社会、实现民族和解的关键;为民主转型提供了新的参考模式,为世界处理过渡司法问题贡献了宝贵经验。南非真相与和解委员会制度为诸多转型国家仿效。

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa represents the most distinctive mechanism of transitional justice and has arguably attracted the most attention worldwide among all the truth commissions that have ever existed.The Commission has gone one step further in giving full play to the role of a truth commission by not only bringing out the truth but also seeking to promote racial reconciliation through truth-telling.Its contributions to the world's human rights cause mainly include;successfully averting the country from falling victim to civil war and thereby defending the most basic human rights of the people;crucially paving the way for societal reconstruction and national reconciliation;and offering a new reference model for democratic transition as well as valuable experiences for the world to address democratic transition.Widely recognized as the biggest success story of its kind in the world,the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa has been emulated by many countries in transition.