A/HRC/24/42 as convincing empirical evidence that they work best, as justice measures, when designed and implemented in a comprehensive fashion rather than in isolation from one another. 25 27. Given the perceived potential of truth commissions, they have become a habitual response to the challenges posed by transitional situations and the legacies of atrocities. The impetus to establish them has not waned. Indeed they have become “normal” responses not just in post-authoritarian but also post-conflict transitions. Some countries have even implemented transitional justice measures in the absence of a political transition and while conflict is still ongoing.26 Consequently, truth commissions are now frequently also tasked with investigating serious violations of international humanitarian law. 27 28. Some contextual characteristics made truth commissions apt mechanisms in the aftermath of violations committed by authoritarian regimes: • The denial of gross or systematic violations, which was as deliberate as the planning and execution of those violations by past regimes, made truth-seeking an appropriate response. • Given the nature of many transitions from authoritarianism, in which predecessor regimes retained, at least temporarily, the capacity to destabilize the transitional process, a policy of truth was a sensible first step towards more comprehensive redress. • Authoritarian State institutions were responsible for the overwhelming majority of violations that required investigation and disclosure, which made the task of commissions at least feasible. 29. Truth commissions in post-conflict settings face particular challenges. They must provide an account of violations often perpetrated by a multiplicity of agents of violence, each much less structured than the security sector of authoritarian regimes and frequently with circulating membership, while the perpetrator/victim line is often porous. Furthermore, security concerns negatively affect virtually all aspects of the operation of commissions, providing powerful disincentives to potential witnesses, statement-takers and even commissioners. Commissions in post-conflict contexts operate in an overall environment of weak institutions, depleted social capital, fragmented civil societies, severe capacity and resource constraints, and often in situations marked by deep ethnic cleavages. 30. However, truth commissions face challenges that do not relate only to the peculiarities of post-conflict settings. The Special Rapporteur would like to call attention to the overburdening of truth commissions worldwide as manifested by the following factors, among others: • The inability of truth commissions to meet the deadlines set forth in their mandates. • Controversies surrounding the aptness of particular appointments of commissioners, posing serious problems for an institution that derives much of its potential from the moral authority of its leadership. 25 26 27 8 Pablo de Greiff, “Theorizing Transitional Justice”, in: Nomos LI: Transitional Justice, Melissa S. Williams, Rosemary Nagy and Jon Elster, eds. (New York, New York University Press, 2012). For the “normalization” of transitional justice measures, see Pablo de Greiff, Some thoughts on the development and present state of transitional justice, Journal for Human Rights, vol. 5, No. 2 (2011). See para. 35 below. The resolution establishing this mandate refers both to addressing “gross human rights violations and serious violations of international humanitarian law”, Human Rights Council resolution 18/7, preamble, eleventh paragraph.