Right to truth: the path to international recognition

The concept of the “right to truth” allows the families of victims of gross or massive human rights violations to learn the truth about what happened to their relatives. The article analyzes the right to truth through the prism of international legal norms and key cases of the ECtHR and the IACHR, which had a significant impact on the formation of this right. When studying the vectors of evolution of the right in question, it is noted that the right to the truth has gradually expanded not only the external aspects of its application, but also its constituent elements: the right to know, the right to compensation, guarantees of non-repetition, and the obligation to conduct an effective investigation. The problem of access to archives is emphasized: it is advisable to store archival materials with a third party when there is a threat of destruction of materials or lack of proper storage conditions. The author notes the difference between the “right to know” and the “right to truth”: the conceptual idea of the “right to know” is to provide information about what happened, and the broader idea of the “right to truth” is no longer just to identify or disclose information about gross human rights violations, but to conduct an investigation to prevent the recurrence of such violations in the future. Despite the contribution of international bodies and courts, the right to truth has not yet taken on an independent form and its future looks uncertain. The analysis of the practices of the IACHR and the ECtHR highlights a fragmented approach to the issue of not only the limits of the realization of the right to the truth, but also the nature of this right. This problem is expressed in the fact that the courts are undecided and always connect the right to truth with one or another convention law in different ways. Emphasizing the evolutionary origin of the right to truth, it is noted that the subsequent fate of the right to truth will largely depend on the judges of the ECtHR and the IACHR.