The Kenyan TJRC: An outsider’s view from the inside

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) will hold a discussion about a book by Ronald Slye who will be in conversation with Westen Shilaho.

Slye has written an insider’s account, candidly assessing both the challenges and failures of the Kenyan TJRC as well as its successes. From 2009 to 2013 he was one of three international commissioners on the Kenyan Commission. In this book he provides new details about the conflicts of interest of the Commission’s chair and the Commission’s efforts to address them; the interference by the President to have references to his family’s land grabbing removed; the innovations the Commission undertook to increase participation by women and to capture violations of and recommendations for protecting socio-economic rights. His candid assessment of the Kenyan TJRC leads to a number of recommendations and insights with respect to truth commissions and transitional justice initiatives generally.

Shilaho is SARChI Chair African Diplomacy & Foreign Policy, University of Johannesburg). 

Add event to calendar