The truth in international criminal trials: A chance to write history?

Since it was first addressed as the right to know the fate of missing and dead persons under international humanitarian law, the idea of a ‘right to truth’ has gradually expanded into other fields of law such as human rights law and international criminal law. Though this right has not been codified in a legally binding instrument of international law, the Human Rights Council (HRC), as the monitoring body of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has interpreted that there is a right to truth and that it is a development of the right to remedy. This has been the theme of various of its Resolutions. The United Nations General Assembly Resolutions are no different as they also understand the truth as a right. The jurisprudence of the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights similarly recognized the right to truth, this time, as an extension to the right to access to justice. It is because of this wide recognition that some commentators, including Yasmin Naqvi, researcher at the ICRC, consider this right to be a general practice of international law which grants it the status of a norm of customary law. But, even if considered a right because of its customary status, what does the right to truth entail? What is its content? What are its contours? These are questions that remain unanswered.