Long-established liberal democracies with histories of settler colonialism—from the United States and Canada to Australia and Scandinavia—are beginning to explore their histories of violence and dispossession. This, in many ways, is long overdue, but the desire to come to terms with past injustices should not obscure the challenges that still stand in the way of any reasonable effort to do so. We argue that transitional justice can be applied to colonial history in liberal democracies, but there are major conceptual and practical obstacles that need to be overcome if this is to happen in meaningful ways. We explore three of these obstacles here that are particularly significant: the doctrine of intertemporal law, the unequal power balance between the Global North and the Global South, and national identity. If these are to be overcome, it is important to tie historical to present injustices and to incorporate, beyond violations of physical rights, violations of economic and social rights that are particularly relevant for understanding continuities between past and ongoing violations. These rights are commonly neglected even by states that recognize a broad set of liberal rights and have the capacity to ensure that they are realized, and represent a promising avenue for pursuing a truly inclusive, equitable, and universal understanding of justice.

Objective/context: The article explores truth commissions as processes that allow victims and civil society mobilization. It examines the relationship between victims and civil society with the governing regime in the lead up to the establishment of a truth commission and in the implementation of a commission’s recommendations. The article frames mobilization as enabling vertical accountability relationships following the pressure that victims and civil society exert on the governing regime. To support this argument, I examine the commissions established in 1990 in Nepal and in 1994 in Sri Lanka. Methodology: The article proposes evaluative criteria showing a governing regime is rendered accountable to pressure from civil society, in the lead up to establishing a truth commission and as a result of the recommendations in the final report. It then assesses whether or not the data collected fulfills the evaluative criteria proposed. Data has been collected by carrying out a literature review, including primary and secondary sources, and through semi-structured interviews conducted in Nepal and Sri Lanka between 2013 and 2015. Conclusions: The evidence collected suggests that a close relationship between victims, civil society, and pro-democracy political parties leading to the establishment of a truth commission, limits the pressure this civil society can exert on the implementation of recommendations, once those prodemocracy political parties are in the new government. Originality: The analysis of truth commissions as processes is relevant to better understand the reasons behind a lack of implementation of their recommendations.

Experts agree that in 1990, Nepal established a truth commission to investigate disappearances that allegedly happened between 1960 and 1990. Little is known about this truth-seeking mechanism. Most of what has been published refers to the Mallik Commission, a better-known commission established also in 1990. This Research Note presents new data on the Committee on Disappearances. It examines the process through which the Committee came to be and speculates that the main purpose for its establishment might have been to examine the disappearances of seven people in relation to the 1985 bombing, a series of explosions targeting the monarchy. The Note presents the main findings compiled in the Committee’s final report and examines the reasons why the final report was never published.