Committee Introduction

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) are official bodies tasked with exploring and discovering past wrongdoing by states or other actors to resolve past conflicts. They are mainly restorative justice mechanisms, sometimes having a court-like structure. Most are formed as a response to human rights violations, especially preceding internal armed conflicts, as independent or sometimes governmental bodies. Their main aim is to investigate and document violations, potentially (although not necessarily) to enable criminal prosecution or just to shed light onto what really happened. They try to answer the many unanswered questions generated by enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and other crimes committed in times of state unresponsiveness and secrecy, that leave relatives wondering what happened to the victims and where they might be.

This edition of BogaziciMUN 2026 is going to be simulating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa. Formed in 1996, following the end of the Apartheid, TRCSA is chaired by Desmond Tutu and authorised by Nelson Mandela. The commission’s main task is going to be listening to witnesses who are deemed as victims of human rights violations, as well as receiving amnesty applications from perpetrators and deciding on giving out amnesties. As a vital mechanism of transitional justice, the participants of TRCSA will try to shed light on what really happened, document lived sufferings, and provide healing through justice and truth.