Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper provides an overview of the state of the field of transitional justice, with particular focus on truth telling mechanisms, including truth commissions and tribunals. After a brief overview of the field of transitional justice, it offers both lessons learned and trends in the field, as well as challenges faced by practioners.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: There is a significant body of linguistic research on the semantic interpretation of questions. Hamblin (1973) equates a question to the set of propositions that are its possible answers, whereas Karttunen (1977) relates a question solely to the set of propositions that embody its true answers. Groenendijk and Stokhof (1997) suggest a further dichotomy between partial answers and irrelevant statements.
These semantic investigations into the relationship between questions and their answers provide for a fascinating analysis of the courtroom interaction that takes place between a questioning attorney and an answering witness who swears to tell the truth. Tiersma (1990) discusses the case of Bronston v.United States (409 U.S. 352 (1973)), where the Supreme Court drew a distinction between the truth and the whole truth, declaring that a witness whose answer is only partially true has not perjured him/herself. In this presentation I shall show how the Court’s surprising conclusion follows directly from the semantic properties of questions. In addition, the linguistic research provides a plausible account for a further distinction between the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Publication Type: Symposium Paper
Abstract: Previous research indicates that promising to tell the truth significantly reduces lie-telling by children between the ages of 3 and 7 years (Talwar, Lee, Bala, & Lindsay, 2002). However, the influence of promising has not been assessed with older children and adolescents. The present study examined whether promising to tell the truth increases 9- to 16- year-olds truth-telling behavior about a transgression. Results are consistent with previous findings with younger children indicating that promising to tell the truth increases truth telling behaviour in older children and adolescents. Results will be discussed in terms of implications for legal systems.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: This paper examines truth as a master trope in the 2008 primary campaigns of John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Through an analysis of the candidates’ websites, the construction of truth as a master trope is explicated. The master trope of truth is developed on the Huckabee website as the “Truth Squad” area. The trope is developed on the McCain website through the “Straight Talk Express metaphor” and the “Truth Squads” established to fight negative campaigning in South Carolina. Finally, this paper examines the social significance of constructing truth as a master trope.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Among major legal systems in the world, criminal laws of countries of the Common Law family of laws, especially of the United States, have frequently been characterized as serving speed, efficiency, and other such pragmatic considerations, rather than truth, justice, or fairness. But is the situation really so clear-cut? Careful analysis of some U.S. criminal court cases, especially those supporting the so-called reliability rationale for due process, reveals that truth has been an important consideration in adjudication of cases. It seems therefore that, rather than simplistically categorizing legal systems of countries in black-or-white terms, one should rather consider a more complex model where different legal systems would all display all (or at least most of) characteristic features, but the differences between/among world legal families would be found not in the presence/absence of a trait but rather in the degree (intensity) of that trait in one family compared with another. This seems to be the right approach at least with regard to the issue of values that criminal adjudication serves – truth, justice, and fairness - as opposed to speed, efficiency, effectiveness, and an “assembly-line” process. Whether such an approach applies to other issues on which world legal families may be compared, remains a good topic for further research.