It is not too often that routine UN documents catch my eye with something interesting. But in the document “Annotations to the Provisional Agenda” of the Commission of Human Rights, document number E/CN.4/2006/1/Add.1, page 44, Item 236 I found this gem:

“In its resolution 2005/66, the Commission requested the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to prepare a study on the right to the truth…”

That got my brain working right away. What did this mean? What truth were they after? And do we as human beings, have the fundamental right to the truth?

A right to truth—a right to be told the truth, a right to express the truth, a right to believe the truth. Of course, truth is an elusive word that can mean many things to many people, and like beauty sometimes is only in the eye of the beholder.

So is there “true truth”? Some kind of absolute? Who defines it, and where can you find it? I wish Madame High Commissioner well in her attempts to enshrine and propagate the right to truth. However I also have a feeling that it may well be difficult to achieve consensus among the 192 countries on what truth actually is, let alone the right to have it.

As both history and current affairs so clearly demonstrate, truth is often in very short supply, and what one country (or person) believes to be true is not what another believes. Also, surprising as it may seem to some, no country (or person) always tells the truth, or proclaims the others’ right to know the truth. In fact many, even most, are very “economical with the truth,” in the words of an English politician. Just take a look at the anti-conversion laws and restrictions on religious freedom around the world, and the right to truth is clearly violated every day.

But there was one Person, who not only spoke of the right to truth, but identified himself as the truth. And his line was that if you had the truth, it would set you free. Now that’s a right to truth I would willingly fight for all to have.

© Jonathan Gallaghe