Abstract

Historical commissions are state-sanctioned non-legal, academically grounded, ad hoc bodies of inquiry. These are established to investigate the origins, development, and legacy of historical events at the center of competing narratives and memories of the past, which generate social and political unrest in the present and fuel instability and even outbreaks of violence. Despite the interaction between historical commissions with the field of transitional justice, this intersection has often gone unnoticed. This entry focuses on explaining why the synergies between the two paradigms have been overlooked and identifies opportunities and elements of concern emerging from this relationship.