Source: The Conversation – Canada
Since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its 94 Calls to Action in 2015, institutions and communities across the country have developed programming to increase awareness of the residential school system. This is vital work. However, this is only part of what reckoning with truths about colonial injustices requires. Such reckoning is not only a moral obligation or societal responsibility; it is also a legal one.
In international law, investigation of the truth surrounding gross human rights violations is a state obligation. The communities impacted by these violations have a “right to truth.”
As a white settler, I view it as one of my responsibilities to develop a critical understanding of this right and to advocate for its fulfillment in Canada. The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on September 30 is an important time to engage in these conversations.
The right to truth
The “right to truth” emerged in international law during the 1970s in response to a rise in enforced disappearances in politically unstable nations. An early version of this right was articulated in the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.
This right was further developed in the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006. However, Canada has not yet signed this convention.
In these legal instruments, the right to truth is focused on families’ rights to know the fate of missing relatives in cases of armed conflict, enforced disappearance and other forms of extra-legal detention.
However, the 2006 “Study on the right to truth” by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights noted that, in soft international law, this right “has been gradually extended” to include the right to know “the causes and conditions” of all “serious human rights violations,” “the circumstances and reasons for the perpetration of crimes,” “and the identity of perpetrators.” This broader understanding of this right was affirmed by the UN General Assembly in a 2013 resolution.
Providing access to information about gross human rights violations is not an end in itself. States have responsibilities to act upon information that is unearthed. The Joinet-Orentlicher Principles, (endorsed by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2005), link the right to truth to the prosecution of crimes and the provision of reparations.
Colonial reckoning in Canada
The TRC was keenly aware of this international context. The Commission’s Call to Action 69 references the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Joinet-Orentlicher Principles in affirming “Aboriginal peoples’ inalienable right to know the truth about what happened and why, with regard to human rights violations committed against them in the residential schools.”
Several related Calls to Action address access to state and church archives and the identification of burial sites of children who died at the schools.
More than a decade later, the Canadian government has continued to fall short of its responsibilities towards Indigenous communities’ right to truth. The Standing Senate Committee on Indigenous Peoples has investigated many of these problems.
In my book, Indigenous Reparations and Settler Colonial Reckoning, I analyze how Indigenous communities’ right to truth has been compromised by Canada’s approach to implementing the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. This class action settlement established the TRC as well as two mechanisms for compensation for Survivors.
My research demonstrates how, throughout a series of legal cases, Canada narrowly interpreted its responsibilities to search and disclose state archives in terms of domestic contract law rather than the substantial obligations outlined in international law regarding the right to truth.
I believe this approach has resulted in structural denialism.
Structural problems require structural change
Several scholars have discussed the problem of residential school denialism.
Daniel Heath Justice, Indigenous literature professor, and Sean Carleton, professor of history and Indigenous studies, contend that denialism does not necessarily entail “the outright denial of the Indian Residential School system’s existence.” Instead, they say it often involves rhetorical strategies such as “the rejection or misrepresentation of basic facts about residential schooling.”
In addition to such rhetorical tactics, I argue that denialism may also take structural forms embedded in bureaucratic, legal and archival practices that displace the robust human rights standards associated with the right to truth with more limited approaches to disclosing state records.
Recognizing these structural versions is key to understanding how even politicians and bureaucrats who acknowledge residential school harms may contribute to policies and practices that impede Indigenous communities’ right to truth.
Indigenous rights and the right to truth
In 2021, as several Indigenous nations announced the results of ground-penetrating radar surveys indicating potential unmarked graves at former residential schools, the federal government appointed an Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools (ISI).
The ISI’s 2024 final reports powerfully resituate truth and reconciliation in relation to the broader international legal context.
The reports conclude:
“Consistent with international human rights laws, principles — and standards, the right to truth is owed to Indigenous Peoples. The Canadian State has legal and moral obligations to ensure that a full investigation is conducted into the disappearances and deaths of the children. Such investigations, however, must not be led or constrained by the existing systems that have harmed Indigenous Peoples for over one hundred years. A new mechanism must be created, one that is Indigenous-led and governed.”
The ISI’s reports outline an “Indigenous-led Reparations Framework” that connects the right to truth with Indigenous rights.
Reckoning with truths about colonialism requires an increased critical literacy of international law across Canada. I emphasize the word critical because international law is not a neutral instrument of justice. It too has been shaped by the global forces of colonialism. Respecting Indigenous nations’ right to truth therefore involves engaging not only with international law but also, first and foremost, with Indigenous laws and leadership.
Pauline Wakeham has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in relation to this research..
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/09/29/the-right-to-truth-and-justice-need-to-be-part-of-this-national-day-for-truth-and-reconciliation/