Belgium’s ‘Truth Commission’ on its overseas colonial legacy : an expressivist analysis of transitional justice in consolidated democracies

In the summer of 2020, the Belgian Parliament established a Special Parliamentary Commission tasked with launching an enquiry into Belgium's overseas colonial legacy and reflecting on appropriate reparations. It was the first consolidated democracy to establish a truth commission to investigate the historical and ongoing injustices related to overseas colonialism. In this article, I argue in favor of treating this commission as a truth commission and focus on the extra-legal and expressivist functions of truth commissions to understand potential long-term and indirect effects of this initiativ... Mehr ...