Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Liberia)

Liberia, final report 2009. No commission on this list was bolder towards a sitting government. It recommended that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and 51 others be barred from public office for 30 years for helping to form and finance warring factions, and that about 98 people it considered notorious perpetrators of gross human rights violations and war crimes be prosecuted. The pushback was immediate. Prince Y. Johnson, named among the notorious perpetrators, disputed the recommendation by pointing to a 2003 law granting general amnesty. Liberia shows how far a commission can go in naming names, and how contested that becomes when the people named still hold power.