This text presents a comparative, international study of commissions of inquiry that have been convened in response to extraordinary failures and scandals.
A number of high-profile commissions of inquiry have recently been conducted in a range of countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Additionally, the events of the Bush and Blair administrations' "War on Terror" are expected to yield further controversial commissions of inquiry.
For some time, commissions of inquiry have been common to the politics of the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia. However, recent years have seen a much wider range of states establish commissions of inquiry into intelligence and security issues, and they have also played important roles in transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Commissions of inquiry are no longer even the exclusive preserve of states, as transnational institutions such as the United Nations and European Union have begun to convoke them.
This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive examination of commissions of inquiry around the world at a time when they have become important and increasingly invoked tools to discover truth, curb abuses, and reconcile national security
