Sponsored by the Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, the Asian Studies Program, and the Buffalo Human Rights Center, the conference brings together experts on Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRCs) from around the globe to reflect on national experiences with implementing truth and reconciliation and to offer lessons for the recently-concluded TRC process in South Korea. The TRC Korea officially closed its doors at the end of 2010 after more than four years of work, during which time it investigated approximately ten thousand reported cases of human rights violations taking place between 1910 and 1993. Much work lies ahead, however, in publicizing and implementing the Commission's findings and recommendations.

Within this process, there is much to learn from the comparative experiences of the more than thirty other TRCs that have undertaken work in countries around the world. Such Commissions have taken a diversity of forms, responded to distinct kinds of violence over distinct periods of time, and, given the diversity of approaches taken, had a wide variety of success rates with the implementation of their final recommendations. Experts in transitional justice and TRC processes in Peru, South Africa, and Cambodia will seek to document the reasons behind these relative success rates, explaining the distinct approaches taken to implementation, the web of actors involved in the implementation process, and the lessons learned about what worked, what did not work, and how, looking back, the implementation process might have been restructured to achieve better results.