Perry and Sayndee analyse seven African case studies in transitional justice (Liberia, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad and Morocco) and set out to understand how post-conflict states in the midst of political transition can ensure that both peace and justice will prevail. Their analysis raises more questions than answers but essentially concludes that the utilisation of truth commissions, given all of their flaws, limitations and contradictions, offer ‘value as a means of transitional justice’ (p. 81). Moreover, the authors demonstrate that institutional approaches to truth recovery and accountability can complement the work of international tribunals, most notably the International Criminal Court.

Modern truth commissions, which arose four decades ago in South and Central America, came into existence in the aftermath of horrific bureaucratic criminality as well as civil conflict. Their purposes have varied, but most aspire to the following outcomes: to shed light on the truth about a nation's past; serve as an antidote to impunity by establishing a level of accountability for the perpetrators of gross human rights violations; provide a public platform for the victims of human rights violations to learn the truth and hopefully begin the process of healing; catalyse public debate; provide reparations for victims; recommend legal and institutional reforms; and advance national reconciliation as well as consolidate a nation's democratic transition. African truth commissions, which constitute one third of all modern cases, possess the added dimension of favouring restorative over retributive justice. Inevitably, such a focus exacerbates the tension between reconciliation and justice. Added to this, most of the African examples emerged from extreme cases of state-sponsored terror, widespread torture, and even genocide. Therefore, it should be no surprise that ‘the expectations for truth commissions are almost always greater than they can deliver’ (p. xv).

According to Perry and Sayndee, the most successful example of transitional justice among the African cases was South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (1996–1998). From the outset, the TRC structured itself around the concept of ‘Ubuntu’, which emphasised harmony, community, and human inter-connectedness. As a result, the prospect of amnesty became a possibility for even the worst perpetrators of apartheid-era crimes provided that full disclosures were made and that one's actions were based on political motives. Among all of the modern truth commissions, South Africa's was by far the largest, with a budget approaching $50 million and a staff of 300. Its work was carried out by three committees: the Human Rights Violations Committee, which collected the testimonies of victims in public forums; the Reparations and Rehabilitation Committee, which received more than 20,000 applications, and the Amnesty Committee, which gathered 7,112 applications and approved 849. The extent to which healing and reconciliation actually occurred remains problematic, most perpetrators never applied for amnesty, and in the end, apartheid's victims obtained relatively meagre restitution. Despite these flaws, the TRC ‘is still one of the most remarkable efforts of peace making in recent human history’ (p. 24).