The role of historical commissions on addressing the legacies of the colonial past

Post-colonial states and settler nations are increasingly facing pressures to come to terms with their colonial pasts to redress historical injustices. Governments and stakeholders are increasingly looking for ways to address the legacies that the colonial past has in present social injustice and structural inequalities. One such mechanisms are historical commissions. As will be referred to in this paper, historical commissions are ad hoc investigative bodies sanctioned by the state to clarify the historical facts surrounding injustices or crimes committed in a distant past seeking to (1) to uncover or clarify specific events relating to past abuses; and (2) contribute to processes of recognition, accountability, and redress on the basis thereof. Although such commissions originated outside the field of transitional justice, they have increasingly been adopting the language and logic of the field. This paradigm shift has been particularly noticeable within post-colonial states and settler nations. The choice to frame historical commissions as instances of transitional justice can be explained by the fact transitional justice’s core objectives of consolidating just, stable, inclusive and peaceful societies hold great normative appeal for their sanctioning states. This has been the case, for example, of Australia, Canada, Chile and most recently Belgium and the Nordic countries – Norway, Finland, Sweden – have established historical commissions to address the legacies of their colonial past. Drawing from these cases, the conference paper reflects on the ways in which such commissions contribute to addressing the legacies of the colonial past – for instance, through the historical clarification of the past, addressing issues of acknowledgement and recognition of past wrongdoing, or by linking the past and the present though historical lines of continuity to uncover the impact of colonialism in the present. On the other hand, the paper will address some of the most salient pitfalls – for example, becoming tactical concessions to avoid deeper systemic reforms, or silencing disruptive discourses whilst focusing on the strategic investigation of events. While the paper uses specific cases to illustrate the discussion, its broader theoretical and conceptual underpinnings emerge from wider research in which I conducted a thorough examination of twenty-seven historical commissions established in from 1990s in different parts of the world. The examination of the cases provides a robust understanding of the organisational strategies, methods, and challenges of the work of such commissions. These insights allow to frame the conference paper within a broader area of study related to historical commissions.