B. To what end? Apart from referring to accountability, mandates rarely specify what should be done with the information about individuals collected in the course of an investigation. It is important at the outset, however, to define the purposes that that information might serve, as those purposes directly impact the decision on whether to identify responsible individuals at all (at least where the mandate is silent), at what level, and in what way. Indeed the question of what to do with the information collected lies at the very core of the exercise and should be given serious consideration. Some of the particular ways in which it might serve to foster accountability or to fight impunity are set out below. Sharing information with any of the entities referred to below does not necessarily mean the individual will be punished, sanctioned, vetted, etc. Each of the mechanisms has its own methodology and protocols for assessing information from external sources, such as a CoI, FFM or similar investigation. 1. Truth seeking United Nations investigations can play an important role in transitional justice initiatives that focus on truth seeking and the historical preservation of facts.19 Information on individuals allegedly responsible for serious crimes, which has been gathered in an investigation, might feed into such processes, importantly reinforcing the notion of individual, as opposed to group, responsibility.20 This guidance refers to notions of “transitional justice” as set out in “Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the rule of law and transitional justice in conflict and post-conflict societies” (S/2004/616). Transitional justice is not viewed as a complement to, or substitute for, criminal justice. It is rather an approach to accountability in difficult or constrained circumstances that encompasses a variety of measures of which criminal justice and truth telling may be core components. 20 One example where CoI reports – many of which included perpetrator information – were employed in a truth and reconciliation context is that of Chile after the Pinochet regime. See “Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation (‘Rettig Report’)”, February 1991, 826–827 (citing the “Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group Established under Resolution 8 (XXXI) of the Commission on Human Rights to Inquire into the Present Situation of Human Rights in Chile”, 1975-1978). Another example occurred with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Liberia which made use of the United Nations Panel of Experts report on the Harbel (Carter Camp) Massacre in 1993. See Liberia, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report”, 29 June 2009, available at http://trcofliberia.org/resources/ reports/final/trc-of-liberia-final-report-volume-ii.pdf. OHCHR has supported truth-seeking efforts in, inter alia, Colombia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Guatemala, including with respect to identifying alleged perpetrators of serious violations and crimes. 19 18 ATTRIBUTING INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY