Commissions of Inquiry and National Security

This text presents a comparative, international study of commissions of inquiry that have been convened in response to extraordinary failures and scandals.

In recent years, commissions of inquiry have been common to the politics of the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia. 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 comprehensively examines commissions of inquiry around the world, which have become important and increasingly invoked tools to discover truth, curb abuses, and reconcile national security imperatives with the constraints of law and human rights. It offers timely insights for national security analysts, government officials, diplomats, lawyers, scholars, human rights monitors, students, and citizens.

Stuart Farson is adjunct professor of political science and research associate of the Institute for Governance Studies at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada.

Mark Phythian is professor of politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, UK.