Abstract/Summary

This chapter examines domestic commissions of inquiry and offers a critique of their intersection with international law. There is almost no literature devoted to this subject. Scholars certainly have engaged with ‘domestic commissions of inquiry’, but this has tended to be in relation to particular commissions created within a single state (rather than domestic commissions tout court) and has focused on the suitability of commission’s procedural mechanisms and/or questions of accountability. This chapter takes a broader perspective on the societal role of domestic commissions and their relationship with international legal norms. It argues that the engagement by domestic commissions of inquiry with international law is hugely dependant on the relevant social context, which generates consequent implications for the normative authority of those inquiries. The intersection of domestic commissions of inquiry and international law thus must be viewed through the prism of political and social choice.