(Post-)colonial historical commissions and the pursuit of structural justice

Paper presentation by Cira-Palli Aspero at the Human Rights Research Network – International Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Conference: ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75: Rethinking and Constructing its Future Together’ 6-8 December 2023 – Ghent University, Belgium.

In panel: Reckoning with the colonial past: Accountability for historical and ongoing injustice.

In this paper, I explore in which way (post-)colonial historical commissions can potentially contribute to a process of redressing historical and ongoing injustice. To do so, I frame the analysis within the structural injustice approach focusing on the notion of responsibility, the identification of structural injustice, the process of reframing of the past, and the concept of disruption and change. Although the paper is mainly a conceptual piece, I use the examples from several (post-)colonial historical commissions to illustrate my argument.