Blog Post
"Impermissible lies" prevent societies emerging from extreme conflict from healing their wounds and moving forward, said Michael Ignatieff at a forum on truth commissions sponsored by the WPF Program on Intrastate Conflict.
Divinity School Dean Bryan Hehir emphasized the importance of "prudential" "Impermissible lies" prevent societies emerging from extreme conflict from healing their wounds and moving forward. moral judgments in assessing the utility of the truth commission method, and Law School and Kennedy School Professor Philip Heymann suggested that truth commissions were a cost-effective way of achieving closure after episodes of state-dividing conflict.
Law School Professor Martha Minow argued that truth commissions not only can but must provide a contextual armature for rebuilding shattered states, communities, families, and individuals.
Charles Maier, Director of the Center for European Studies, reminded that "restorative justice does not restore to what was, but that it is possible to make quantitative judgements and find common ground."
David Crocker, Senior Research Scholar at the University of Maryland, spoke on the value of punishment, of negative sanctions for immoral behavior, and concluded with the thought that "transitional justice is yet another area where we''re seeking global assessment for the unassessable."
The event launched Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions, a new book edited by WPF Director Robert Rotberg and Dennis Thompson, head of Harvard''s Center for Ethics and the Professions.
(http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/bcsia/wpf )