Dignity Requires Truth

Introduction

When the families of victims of enforced disappearance march through city squares holding photographs of “the disappeared”, they are asserting one of the most fundamental entitlements in international human rights law: the right to know what happened to their loved ones, where they are and who was responsible. This is the right to truth, and today, this right is being questioned.

On 21 December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24 March as the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. This commemoration pays tribute to the memory of Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero, who was murdered on 24 March 1980. Romero was actively engaged in denouncing violations of the human rights of the most vulnerable individuals in El Salvador.

This year, 24 March also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the coup d’état in Argentina, which was followed by years of terror under the brutal dictatorship of the military junta. Between 1976 and 1983, tens of thousands of people were murdered or disappeared.

The observance provides the opportunity to reflect on how we should strive to re-establish the dignity of the victims of human rights abuses. This can only be done by ensuring their right to truth; indeed, dignity requires truth.

The right to truth has deep roots. Predating its formal legal codification by decades, this right has consistently been recognized across international lawmaking, court decisions and the lived experience of survivors from Argentina to Morocco, from Cambodia to Colombia. The Updated Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Action to Combat Impunity, known as the Joinet/Orentlicher Principles, describe it as an “inalienable right”. As declared in the Principles, every people has the right to know the truth about past events concerning the perpetration of heinous crimes and the circumstances that made those crimes possible.

A personal and collective right

The right to truth operates on two levels simultaneously, and understanding both is essential to protecting it.

At the individual level, it belongs to victims and their families: the right to know the fate and whereabouts of a relative, to learn the circumstances of an arbitrary execution, to understand who gave the orders. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has put it, when effectively implemented, truth becomes “an empowering and healing force”, which is a form of recognition that restores meaning and dignity to those whose suffering has been systematically denied or erased.

At the collective level, truth belongs to society as a whole. Communities, nations and future generations have a stake in understanding what happened and why; an honest reckoning with the past is one of the most durable safeguards against its repetition. Truth commissions, from the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) in Argentina in 1984, to the Commission for the Clarification of Truth, established in Colombia in 2017, have understood this intuitively; their mandates rested on the rights of individual victims and on the broader claim of society to know its own history.

A right with substance

International standards make clear that the right to truth is far-reaching in scope. It encompasses the causes that led to victims’ suffering; the patterns and institutional structures that enabled violations; the identity of those with command responsibility, not only direct perpetrators; and, crucially, the fate and whereabouts of the victims. States bear a positive obligation to investigate gross violations promptly, independently and effectively, and to ensure that the investigation produces a truthful public record. Extrajudicial processes like truth commissions complement criminal justice; the two must operate together, with findings that reinforce each other.

States are equally obligated to preserve the archives that make truth possible. Records of security services, military files, forensic material, survivor testimony – these are the evidentiary backbone of any serious truth process. The Joinet/Orentlicher Principles impose an affirmative duty to protect evidence from destruction, manipulation or concealment. Where archives have been sealed, the governing standard must be maximum disclosure, with exceptions only where proportionate and strictly necessary for the protection of people.

A questioned right

All of these considerations would be significant even in stable times; they are even more important in times of uncertainty. Today, the right to truth faces two distinct and serious threats.

The first is the resurgence of state-sponsored denial and historical revisionism. Across multiple regions, governments are openly denying or glorifying serious human rights violations that occurred in the past, enacting legislation that outlaws the dissemination of information about such violations, or defunding or dissolving truth commissions. In other contexts in which the mandate has carried out its work, a more insidious dynamic has been found: the instrumentalization of the right to truth through reforms of primary and secondary education curricula aimed at concealing or reframing past atrocities, and in some cases denying the criminal responsibility of certain individuals. Revisionism promotes narratives that distort the documented record of past violations, and often instil fear and hatred. This constitutes a deliberate policy of erasure – not only of the past, but also of the conditions necessary for a truthful and accountable future, undermining the intergenerational transmission of historical truth and the guarantees of non-recurrence of atrocities of the past.

The second threat, and simultaneously, the second opportunity, comes from emerging technologies. Digital platforms have dramatically amplified the reach of denialist content, making the manipulation of historical memory faster, cheaper and more scalable than ever before. Deepfakes, algorithmic amplification of disinformation and the deliberate deletion of digital evidence all pose serious risks to the integrity of the historical record.

Yet technology also opens new pathways. Digital tools enhance the capacity to document violations in real time, preserve evidence that would otherwise disappear and expand access to truth processes for victims who cannot physically participate in them. Forensic advances in DNA identification have transformed the search for the disappeared. Open-source digital investigation has made accountability possible in contexts where traditional evidence gathering could not. The challenge is to harness these opportunities while preventing their misuse, and to ensure that technology supports and strengthens the right to truth. New technologies must help reinforce the centrality of survivors’ voices and enable societies, and generations to come, to confront past violations, preserve memory and prevent recurrence.

An obligation requiring political will

The existing legal framework is robust, but it is currently under threat. International law imposes an obligation on every State to implement and protect the right to truth. What is required now is the political will to do so. States must invest in independent investigations, protect those who document violations – journalists, human rights defenders, forensic experts and others – and actively reject negationism rather than enable it. International actors should support the development of documentation capacities, promote common standards for digital evidence and strengthen cooperation with truth‑seeking mechanisms.

At the same time, there is a need to address the fresh challenges that new technologies pose to the protection of the right to truth, particularly when non‑State actors are involved. In the coming years, it will therefore be essential to address violations of this right through holistic strategies that go beyond an exclusively State‑centred approach. This includes considering how to hold certain non‑State actors accountable while fostering cooperation with them. The ultimate goal is to ensure that new technologies serve to reinforce, rather than undermine, the right to truth.

Formally recognized as both a legal entitlement and a prerequisite for meaningful justice, the right to truth also functions as a forward-looking strategy for prevention. In a world where the manipulation of memory has increasingly become a tool of governance, safeguarding truth stands as one of the most consequential responsibilities for both States and international actors. Ensuring its protection is not only a matter of justice for past violations but also a critical investment in the integrity and resilience of societies for the future.

This year, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence is completing a report on the challenges of negationism, revisionism and politicization in transitional justice contexts for the sixty-second session of the Human Rights Council; and a report on emerging technologies in the context of transitional justice for the eighty-first session of the General Assembly.