Adaptations of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in the North American Context: Local Examples of a Global Restorative Justice Intervention

Abstract

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) are restorative justice mechanisms for addressing human rights violations and injustice at the macro level. Mainly applied in the Global South, they have only recently been adapted within North America. The Greensboro, NC TRC was launched by grassroots and community-based organizations in 2004 to examine the causes and consequences of a 1979 incident of racial violence. The Canadian TRC was established in 2008 to address the legacy of colonial policies of assimilation and the forced schooling of indigenous populations. Through a comparison of these two cases, this paper will investigate how the North American context shapes the nature of the problems that these TRCs address, how they are organized, their relationship to the legal system, the role of civil society, and their relationship to poverty and reparations. Implications for social work, restorative justice and the potential for additional TRCs in North America are discussed.

Truth commissions in the established democracies of the Global North: Theoretical and practical perspectives

“…Further complicating matters, commissions in established democracies typically operate—by virtue of the lack of a clear political transition—within a “sociopolitical context dominated by the institutional perpetrators and individual beneficiaries of the injustices” (James, 2012, p. 203). In addition to potentially posing a legitimacy issue for such commissions amongst the affected communities (Androff, 2012), such truth commissions, by virtue of this context, are also likely to encounter “official obstinacy [and] self‐interested majoritarian complacency” (James, 2012, p. 184). James (2012) concludes that in the case of Canada, the settler‐Indigenous power asymmetry—reflected in the government, the media, the populace, etc.—was the “key” challenge facing the TRC which impeded the process and restricted the willingness of settler society to take appropriate responsibility for the harms (p.196).…”

Closing the cultural rights gap in transitional justice: Developments from Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls

“…The impact of this cultural loss has been far-reaching, being closely linked to many structural inequalities and social problems among indigenous communities. 106 The Indian residential school system was undoubtedly instrumental to the settler colonial project in Canada, but it was only one component, among many other violently anti-indigenous policies and actions. The TRC's narrow focus sidelined other forms of indigenous cultural harm, as well as their ongoing impacts on indigenous communities.…”

Structural Racism in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Moving Forward

“…The underlying reasons for and experiences of TRCs in the U.S. and Canada further make them particularly promising to effectively address structural racism. Such TRCs have been characterized by grassroot and community-based mobilization rather than the traditional top-down approach and their focus has shifted from processes to create democratic institutions to investment in human security more generally (Androff 2012a;Centala 2016). They have also shown to have a positive healing power (Androff 2012b).…”