Truth, Law and Official Denial: The Case of Bloody Sunday

The recovery of truth has become one of the abiding concerns of the resolution of conflict in the modern era. Those who have suffered as the result of conflict look to law as a means of asserting their grievances and achieving accountability for the wrongs done. Yet the question remains whether law is capable of providing that accountability and arriving at some form of truth. In many places conflict has been resolved through regime change and the creation of new institutions that provide the backdrop for this search for truth and justice. There, the old state is gone and those who were responsible for abuses are no longer in power. Using law to arrive at truth and justice has some prospects for success there. But those places are rare, as even where there is apparent regime change, the actors involved in the conflict often remain.