Right to Truth in International Justice

Abstract

The right to truth is a phenomenon that appeared in international law after about the 1980s. Its development is associated with the repression of authoritarian governments in Latin America in the context of basic human rights leveling, which received negative reaction from society. The global need for justice and the preservation of a stable world has led to the gradual expansion of the institute to other regions of the world. The uniqueness of the developed methods allowing us to preserve the memory of large-scale crimes against the person in the public consciousness, to improve and fill in the right to receive information (the right to know), makes it possible to talk about the right to the truth as one of the most promising mechanisms of the human rights protection system. The paper attempts to understand the right to the truth at the present stage, the scope of guarantees it contains, and examines particular cases in relation to the right to know the circumstances of crimes, including cases of enforced disappearance, facts about victims, their fate and location, identification of criminals, rights of victims and their families. The right to the truth is a dynamically developing complex institution of international law, a powerful tool in the hands of international justice bodies in the fight against the perpetrators of the most serious crimes and in the prevention of crimes, a tool for the formation of a truly legal, democratic state. It is based on customary international law, supplemented in general terms by special rules of contract law. The incompleteness of material regulation is compensated by the law enforcement activities of international courts. By its legal nature, the right to the truth is based on positive international obligations of states to prosecute, to provide assistance to other states and international bodies, and on negative obligations as a means of prevention.