Transitional Justice in South Korea: One Country’s Restless Search for Truth and Reconciliation

A recent Korean film, “National Security”, about a democracy activist and former Korean politician, Kim Geun-Tae, who was kidnapped and tortured into making a false confession by police in 1985, has renewed debate among South Koreans about the state of transitional justice in the country. From 1995 to 2010, South Korea took a number of steps to expose the political oppressions and human rights abuses of its past authoritarian governments and to assist individuals involved in the struggle for democracy to clear their names and restore their reputations. This article analyzes the relative success and failure of South Korea’s truth seeking process and the prospect for the realization of transitional justice in the country in the future