Insights from International Law
from Part IV - Truth Mechanisms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2025
Chapter 7 focuses on truth mechanisms and identifies the legal questions that arise when integrating corporate abuses within their mandate, namely the contours and content of truth, in the aftermath of violations and the extent of a relevant state duty to reveal the truth for corporate violations, as a matter of law. The chapter investigates relevant legal sources and case law of human rights bodies and emphasizes the evolution of ‘a right to truth’ in international law and its unrestricted nature, both of which place an unqualified focus on the importance of revealing the truth in its totality, countervailing other considerations invoked in relation to corporations. It critically assesses those two points against the common disregard of corporate malefactors in TRCs and their override by developmental concerns. The work of the TRCs of Colombia, East Timor and South Africa instantiates that analysis. Furthermore, drawing from the experiences of Mauritius and Sierra Leone, Chapter 7 analyses the collective dimension of the right to truth. The collective dimension is significant for corporate accountability purposes, as it widens the material scope of the truth itself to reach systematic patterns of abuse, and distances it from strict human rights equation requirements.
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